They Glow
"They Glow" 36" x 60" Oil on Canvas © 2004
This is one of the most bizarre paintings Ive ever done. I really have no idea what its about, all I can say about this painting is how I ended up with it. Its really a mis-match of a few random ideas that were floating around in my head at the time. My model is my friend Genevieve, who is a dancer and yoga instructor. I have to credit the pose and overall gesture in this piece, which is probably my favorite aspect of the painting, to her. The weird and creepy imagery is all me, unfortunately.
The setting and composition is probably 100% influenced by a retrospective of Bo Bartlett's work at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2004, which was during my first year of graduate school there. I had come to Pafa intending too be a figurative painter. To see an entire museum of his paintings across the street from my studio for almost two months pretty much shaped the course of all the work I did during my graduate schooling.
"Bone" 2000 Oil on Linen 86" x 100" © Bo Bartlett
I was drawn to the scale of these enormous paintings. I particularly loved the low horizon line in front of a huge expanse of sky and I was trying to capture the same feeling (I actually had a studio visit with Bo Bartlett when he was a visiting critic and we talked about this painting, he was very gracious). It was very theatrical to me, which ties into the whole "clown" nonsense. So I went to a pumpkin patch and snapped some reference pics.
The clown thing comes from when I spent a few days in Venice during a summer semester abroad. There, I learned about the Commedia dell'Arte, which is masked improvisational theatre from the Renaissance through the 18th century. Basically, its where modern day clown originate from. So, long story short, I went to Italy and became obsessed with clowns.
Finally, there's the text hanging around in the air next to Genevieve's head that says, "They Glow!!" That phrase comes from a box of vintage christmas lights that were shaped like snowmen. They were probably from the 1960's. I loved it because it was so retro and the phrase always struck me very funny. The lights were in my studio when I was working on this piece, so I randomly decided to paint it directly onto the painting. It was already so weird, so I figured why not. I copied the typography exactly as it was printed on the box.
As I stated before, this is one of the most bizarre paintings Ive ever done and I think its because all the elements that led to it are so different, but maybe its because clowns are just that weird. Technically, its very poorly painted because I was such young painter at the time, but I enjoy it because it reminds me of a time when I took risks and experimented.
