Alicia Wagner Calzada | Contributor George Zupp, artist and UTSA graduate student, scours Goodwills and takeout containers for inspiration for his ‘cartoony and dumb' work. Cockroaches were the stars of one piece about Jason from ‘Friday the 13th.'

WHO: George Zupp, 39

MEDIA: Paint, sculpture, video-blogging

BEST KNOWN FOR: Mixed-media sculptures incorporating everything from tar to bugs to Christmas lights to paper maché. “I like weird stuff,” Zupp said. “All my aesthetic is based on weird things I'd find at a junk store, like what you'd find at the back of a Goodwill. My work is about trash, and it's also really cartoony and dumb.” He has used mousetraps to build replicas of an outhouse and a three-dimensional Ms. Pac-Man arcade game (old video games are a recurring theme in his work). He incorporated cockroaches into a collage centered on Jason from “Friday the 13th” and a scene from “The Shining.” His pieces often include food refuse as well, such as bones from hot wings he has eaten. His alter ego, Chicken George, produces “rapid free-association style paintings” of farm animals, among other things, that he sells on eBay and at folk art fairs and trades for beer during Hometown Artist Rodeos at The Cove.

BACKGROUND: Zupp is originally from the Alvin/Clear Lake area between Houston and Galveston. He graduated from Southwest Texas State University with a BFA in painting and is finishing up his MFA in sculpture at UTSA.

CHECK HIM OUT: An exhibit of Zupp's work, “Profiles on the rats who ate grease from the dumpster at a Taco Bell,” opens with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 24, and runs through Nov. 18 at C-Art Studio, 1426 W. Craig Place.

Jessica Belasco | 210SA Contributor