Slade Anderson is a self-taught artist and musician from Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts (USA). He began his creative life with his first guitar at the age of 11. By 15 he was in a band, and music consumed him for years. By 1993 he had a number of albums and tours of America and Europe under his belt. His tendencies toward visual art began to emerge in the posters he was making for his different bands, using images and words from magazines to form creative collages. In his mid-twenties he discovered some old model paint leftover from a childhood hobby and his life as a painter was born.

As you might expect, his paintings started out mostly battleship grey and black, but 1996 brought the purchase of his first real canvas and his discovery of vivid color. He has gone on to create an evolving collection of abstract designs on canvas with brilliant acrylic paints. Viewers have described his paintings as "musical" because of their layered rhythms of color, shape and texture. These descriptions have converged with his long love of music to inspire a series of brightly hued silhouette portraits of jazz and reggae musicians. The portrait series' soon expanded beyond musicians to include traditional rastas and women.

After the turn of the century, Slade began fulfilling commissions in a variety of genres. Over the past few years, Slade has produced nearly 20 paintings for The Charlesmark, a European-style boutique hotel located in Copley Square, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He has also received increasing numbers of requests to create promotional flyers for musical events, and continues to design CD and LP covers for commercial musical releases as well as for his extensive personal collection of "mix" CDs. And for fun, he's created a series of novelty t-shirts that are currently not commercially available, but can still be purchased directly from Slade.

With the exception of the "portraits," Slade has always resisted committing to a particular way for hanging his paintings because he is determined that each viewer experience each painting for themselves. He encourages creative thinking and action in others and enjoys reminding people that, "Color won’t hurt you!"

MadFat Design - As Slade's collection of artworks grew, it became important to find a name to reference all of his visual creativity. The name of MadFat Design is actually derived from the nicknames of two of Slade's beloved pets. One cat, Tyler, was usually cranky and often mean, and was nicknamed "Mad." The other, much more docile and friendly cat, Roscoe, had been nicknamed "The Fat," due to his immense size. Additionally, the fact that in turn-of-the-century pop culture the words "mad" and "phat" have come to refer to things that are "hip" and "cool" - well it doesn't hurt.

Music - Slade is a musician as well as a visual artist and produces his own music under the Soundshack Recordings moniker. CDs and LPs from his Burning Babylon project are commercially available. Distributors are listed on the Burning Babylon web site along with the superlative reviews the last two albums have received. You can also listen to a sampling of tunes right from the web site. Burning Babylon is primarily a dub reggae musical project, while Slade's Superworld venture is more pop and dance based. The first Superworld release is anticipated in 2006. Slade also has fun playing locally around New England in an AC/DC cover band called Beefy/DC.

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