Dead Artist

Pop artist Milo Sonas was a New York City art world star in the 80s and 90s. After 9/11, a nervous breakdown and years of obscurity, Milo now finds himself sheltered in a government subsidized motel room in the Midwest. In the afternoons, he wanders the streets, haunts coffee shops and frequents shopping malls. He also experiences frequent supernatural visits from famous dead artists.


When Milo is suddenly rediscovered by a former collector, his fortunes start to shift and his reemergence from obscurity is underway. However, first he must deal with his highly eccentric family members, and plan both his dying mother’s funeral (that she intends to attend) and his own wedding to a University coed, all in the same afternoon. Will Milo escape the drone of suburbia, and stop fearing that art history would rather see him dead, before he is allowed to feel, touch and taste success?


Ivan Jenson’s tour de force written with a unique new voice, will also please those familiar with Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and Philip José Farmer. Readers will be taken on a hilarious, sensual, heartfelt ride. Dead Artist features riotous stream-of-consciousness and time shifting literary riffs. In this high energy novel Pop art icon, poet and author Ivan Jenson creates a vivid portrait of an artist as a post-modern man.


Ivan Jenson’s Absolut Jenson painting was featured in Art News, Art in America, and Interview magazine. His art has sold at Christie’s, New York. His poems have appeared in Word Riot, Zygote in my Coffee, Camroc Press Review, Haggard and Halo, Poetry Super Highway, Mad Swirl, Alternative Reel Poets Corner, Underground Voices Magazine, Blazevox, and many other magazines, online and in print. Jenson is also a Contributing Editor for Commonline magazine.