Stuck Inside of Mobile with The Memphis Blues Again

Acrylic On Canvas

h: 48 x w: 72 in

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This is a new two part series about gender. For me gender has always been a complex issue. As a teenager with a flair for the theatrical I was often assumed to be gay. I grew up in a small all-american town but I always had a very metropolitan manner about me. Although I am and always was heterosexual I was perceived by most to be in the least bi. As a result of this contradiction I became fascinated by how intentions and perceptions often collide in difficult and complex ways. This particular piece deals with the branding of masculine & feminine archetypes in contemporary American culture and how these social constraints impact and frame the issue of identity.

This Woman's Work

Acrylic On Canvas

h: 48 x w: 36 in

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This is the first painting in a new two part series about gender. For me gender has always been a complex issue. As a teenager with a flair for the theatrical I was often assumed to be gay. I grew up in a small all-american town but I always had a very metropolitan manner about me. Although I am and always was heterosexual I was perceived by most to be in the least bi. As a result of this contradiction I became fascinated by how intentions and perceptions often collide in difficult and complex ways. This particular piece deals with the branding of feminine archetypes in contemporary American culture and how these social constraints impact and frame the issue of identity.

It's a Man's Man's Man's World

Acrylic On Canvas

h: 48 x w: 36 in

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This is the first painting in a new two part series about gender. For me gender has always been a complex issue. As a teenager with a flair for the theatrical I was often assumed to be gay. I grew up in a small all-american town but I always had a very metropolitan manner about me. Although I am and always was heterosexual I was perceived by most to be in the least bi. As a result of this contradiction I became fascinated by how intentions and perceptions often collide in difficult and complex ways. This particular piece deals with the branding of masculine archetypes in contemporary American culture and how these social constraints impact and frame the issue of identity.

See You on The Riveria (Dusted On Decadence and Depravity)

Acrylic On Paper

h: 48 x w: 75 in

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When I was eighteen I spent 2 weeks traveling around France. At that time I had hair halfway down my back, dressed like a homeless person and had what could only be described as an abject hostility toward bathing. To put it bluntly I was a libertine in the truest sense. Despite my persuasions I nonetheless did appreciate the finer things in life and thus was staying in the most chi-chi of accommodations. One particularly burley night I happened to fall asleep in the lobby of one of the said hotels. I cannot imagine the ire I must have produced in the other guests. Despite all of this the hotel staff seemed to be absolutely enamored with me. I attribute this to a combination of my enduring charm and good fortune as well as an appreciation on the part of the french for a more aesthetic lifestyle. Either way I still can't believe the life I've lead.

So Baltimore: About Last Nite

So Baltimore: Thanksgiving

So Baltimore: Legacy Of Neglect

So Baltimore: Jackpot!

So Baltimore: Celebration

So Baltimore: Blue Lite Special

Where Psychic Friends Dare to Tread

Acrylic On Paper

h: 22 x w: 30 in

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This is the first in what may become a series of text only pieces. I have been tinkering with the idea of making purely text based work. I'm not certain about it at this point but I am going to continue to experiment with the concept some more.

Anywhere From Here

Acrylic On Paper

h: 42 x w: 73 in

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When I was in college I hung out with a bunch of pagans that I met through a friend of mine from high school who was very charismatic and beautiful. We followed her around like puppies and eventually I came to resent the structure of the relationship. I think I probably acted like an ass in the end but that notwithstanding I still on many levels still feel she was a bit of a Charlie and although it was crappy at times it also was a real blast and I have a lot of great memories from that time.

The Psychopharamacology of Chocolate

Acrylic On Canvas

h: 30 x w: 40 in

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Because of some of the medicine I take for my mental illness I have an adverse reaction to caffeine. Essentially anything with caffeine in it deactivates the meds I take so I might as well not take said meds which isn't really an option for me. So, with that in mind, my aim with this piece is to show how chocolate makes me feel. What it does to my mind and how it effects my bio-chemistry at it's most basic level.

Shiva's Dance of Death Gives Birth to Beauty and Truth

Mixed Media on Board

h: 48 x w: 30 in

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This piece deals with the notion of myth and the story of the tree of life. I hoped with this piece explores the idea of the source of inspiration as a burst of energy and colour. My goal was to document the moment of creation as a self perpetuating process of birth, death and rebirth. I wanted to show what it is like to be in that place where creation happens.

Niteswimming

Mixed Media on Paper

h: 73 x w: 123 in

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When I was in college a bunch of my friends worked at a pizza place as delivery guys. I used to sit at their all nite smoking clove cigarettes and talking with them between delivery runs. At the end of the nite we would often hit up a bar for last call and eventually drive to one of their houses out in the country. It was miles from anywhere and we would sit on the porch, get high and bullshit all nite. Inevitably we would make our way back into town to hit up Denny's and ultimately drive half crazed back to the country wherein we fell asleep where ever we could find a spot, Cold hard floors didn't seem that bad back then. This painting deals with those nites and how we romanticize the past and make it better and more vivid and "real" than it actually was. I know those days weren't as great as I remember them, they were actually pretty strained probably as a direct result of those sleepless nites, but I don't care. I will always remember them fondly.

The Psychopharamacology of Chocolate - Study

I don't usually post my photographs here, but in the spirit of process I thought this was relevant. I've begun work on a piece about the senses. The basic concept is how for me a tempting but otherwise innocuous plate of brownies might as well be spiked with every drug under the sun. The reason is that caffeine has a very severe effect on my brain chemistry. So with that as my starting point I want to paint a picture of brownies that look how, if eaten, they make me feel. The photo here is going to be the visual basis for this painting.

a Few of My Favourite Things 11/1/2009

Rosson Crow
Five Minutes Late and Two Bucks Short at the Cha Cha

Sorry for the recent absence of posting updates to my a Few of My Favourite Things Column here but I'm making it up to you with a really great contemporary artist. Her name is Rosson Crow and she recently graduated from Yale's MFA program. Her work to me is a perfect synthesis of old and new, modern and classical and at the same time very contemporary. Her work involves very elaborately staged, beautifully painted scenes of decadence. You can smell the decay in these paintings and makes your skin crawl in the best way. She has painting everything from the interiors of strip clubs to slaughter house with equal eye for detail. I often describe her work as the love child of Pollock and Bacon but in all honesty, the connections go much deeper than that. Their is something deeply Baroque about her work. It conjures up memories of everyone from Caravaggio to Goya to Velasquez. Despite the absence of figures from her work their presence is nonetheless always felt. You feel the people who populate these places and it haunts you. She is a real talent and she has a long, prolific career ahead of her.

On Art and Gender

Recently Lance Armstrong has been staging a sort of traveling Art show to raise awareness and dollars for his Livestrong charity. Below is picture taken for the recent NYC iteration of the show @ Deitch Projects in SoHo...

Notice anything, other than the guy to Lance's right who might actually be as tall as me, that is. Let me give you a hint, She's the only one in heels. Yep, that's Rosson Crow. A recent Yale MFA grad (as well a one hell of a painter) and also the only female in the group. Now for those that are foreign to the art world you might not even notice this but as someone currently enrolled in a graduate art program I find it blinding. Their are 19 people in my program, 5 of them are men. However if the numbers suggest anything it is that in all likelihood more of those five guys will obtain gallery representation when they graduate than the women will. Let me put it this way. Imagine their are 100 graduating seniors at a public high school somewhere in America, now imagine that 75 are girls and 25 are guys; now imagine that every guy in the class is accepted to college and one girl is. Do you think that might raise some eyebrows. That's exactly what is going on here. This is not a question of fair or unfair, this is a question of blatant gender bias. Their are today, across the board more women applying to, attending and graduating from TOP Graduate fine art programs across the country than their are men but an inverse proportion of them will actually have successful careers in art. Their is no mathematical explanation for this other than bias on the part of the people who organize the shows and bias in this day and age is wrong, the art world is better than this.