brushwork barely dry

The pieces here have all been completed within the last couple of months. And there is blather to go with them - people seem to like blather perhaps because they don't trust their eyes or their own response (I understand this perfectly because I've always felt the same way about movies). Or they want to know about the intention or perhaps the process. I'm mostly an instant reaction kind of person when it comes to visual art. If a painting can still make me laugh or wonder how I managed to get some bit right after I've slugged away at it, I'm prone to thinking it works. I could be hugely mistaken but since I'm so long in the tooth I hardly think it matters.

Blanche and her sycophants

62" x 52", acrylic on canvas.

It's been a while since I put a few figures in one painting. Back in the day I would have been working a lot looser, but bones being stiff and subtle as they are, I adopted a tighter approach that I started using for Blanche in "The Loveliness and Purity of Thin White Girls" (see projects). Her first portrait was very much inspired by portraiture from the original Gilded Age.

This last painting seen here is from a third series (also in projects) where Blanche has ditched her late nineteenth century poise for a crack at ultimate power. The inspiration is pretty obvious; dictators are proliferating everywhere and clearly dental care was never a priority for this regime. I was once admonished by a well known Canadian art collector that I didn't need to bash people over the head, but really I think I rather do need to. Here Blanche is seen highly amused by her sycophants as one of them proceeds to eat his own hand while her dog laps water from the severed top of his skull.

Still life of the disarticulated

On the left (or above) 30" x 24" and on the right (or below) 24" x 18", acrylic on canvas.

Not too much to say about these other than they are a slightly different take on the bones and fabric motif. They are simply rearrangements of a lovely (PVC) skeletal set. Sort of like lego projects for the mortally disturbed perhaps. Still I find beauty and amusement.