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One of the questions I have received most often lately is “what’s the deal with all the women?”
Lots of times it’s tinged with this weird air. This idea as if my art is smut, or I am some sort of smut peddler painting lurid scenes of spicy women. In fact, the organizers of the Moakley show wouldn’t let me hang a piece— Summer Clearance— as they thought it would be too racy. They even thought that Target/Target might get some requests to be taken down. This was a little strange to me as the women are fully clothed in Target/Target and in Summer Clearance they were pretty flatly rendered and clothed in swimwear.
It ended up OK though, as the wall space wasn’t enough for Summer Clearance too.
But my first reaction to some of this has been the most egotistical maybe. That, as a member of the arts community, and fairly well trained and educated (likely trained and educated beyond my ability and intelligence) there might be a chance that my goal in all this is actually to produce art. Maybe not good art, or art that you like, but that I am at least trying to aim for art… something with some depth and meaning.
And some of the meaning in all this is how ironic it is that the everyday images we see (catalogs, baseball cards, magazines, billboards, internet content) might mean something a lot different if we stopped and looked at them for a while.
For example, a catalog that goes out to millions of homes in inoffensive as it sits on your coffee table, but when these same images are made flat, are distilled to line and color, and made into a still image people ask me if I am a smut peddler. Maybe I should start to sign my paintings “Larry Flynt.”
So, at the risk of sounding like an artist (which is a serious risk), if the content or ideas depicted in these “women” paintings is emotionally charged, strangely sexual, offensive or confusing, I might encourage you to consider the source of these works… or to take a look next time you walk past the newsstand or open up your mailbox. If catalogs are OK for mass consumption shouldn’t paintings be too?
What else about the women? The idea of media image/self-image, what is beautiful and what is material seemed easier to ask by using input from women featured in mass media. We are still a culture arguing over beauty, especially at women. Screaming an argument at them from every media outlet. To be real is to be vulnerable. To be fake is to be powerful and desired.
Although, the baseball card paintings have an interesting story too about masculinity and sex.
I am also a big believer in the larger conversation in art. Any art. And using women as subjects in paintings calls to the tradition of women in portraiture. The question that occurs most often in creating the work for me is “what is the current outlet of women’s portraiture?” If this outlet is no longer created in or with painting and art, where is it? Is Victoria’s Secret Summer Sale catalog our new stand-in for the Mona Lisa? Titian’s Eurpoa is now oddly satisfied by glamour photo shoots of Lindsay Lohan or something found in internet pornography? What are the true renderings of feminine beauty (or masculine beauty.. is it a Calvin Klein ad?) in our culture and what do they say about art, audience, and ourselves?
What about Matisse, Gauguin, Boticelli, Ingres, Delacriox, Goya, Sargent, everyone? Can women in bikinis in a painting be that stunning or sexually charged when we see sex on the cover of every magazine, especially in comparison to the whole of art history before cameras were even invented?
Plus, with sex everywhere, if I was aiming for seduction or sex wouldn’t I be a little more saucy about it? I mean, these paintings of mine don’t even compete with an Herbal Essences commercial, a Yoga instructional video, or a good advertisement for toothpaste.
Above, see some other steamy paintings over the years, top to bottom:
1. Jean Honore Fragonard - The Swing - c.1768-69 from arthistortarchive.com
2. Titian, Europa, about 1575–80 from www.gardnermuseum.org
3. Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus c. 1485-86
Lots of times it’s tinged with this weird air. This idea as if my art is smut, or I am some sort of smut peddler painting lurid scenes of spicy women. In fact, the organizers of the Moakley show wouldn’t let me hang a piece— Summer Clearance— as they thought it would be too racy. They even thought that Target/Target might get some requests to be taken down. This was a little strange to me as the women are fully clothed in Target/Target and in Summer Clearance they were pretty flatly rendered and clothed in swimwear.
It ended up OK though, as the wall space wasn’t enough for Summer Clearance too.
But my first reaction to some of this has been the most egotistical maybe. That, as a member of the arts community, and fairly well trained and educated (likely trained and educated beyond my ability and intelligence) there might be a chance that my goal in all this is actually to produce art. Maybe not good art, or art that you like, but that I am at least trying to aim for art… something with some depth and meaning.
And some of the meaning in all this is how ironic it is that the everyday images we see (catalogs, baseball cards, magazines, billboards, internet content) might mean something a lot different if we stopped and looked at them for a while.
For example, a catalog that goes out to millions of homes in inoffensive as it sits on your coffee table, but when these same images are made flat, are distilled to line and color, and made into a still image people ask me if I am a smut peddler. Maybe I should start to sign my paintings “Larry Flynt.”
So, at the risk of sounding like an artist (which is a serious risk), if the content or ideas depicted in these “women” paintings is emotionally charged, strangely sexual, offensive or confusing, I might encourage you to consider the source of these works… or to take a look next time you walk past the newsstand or open up your mailbox. If catalogs are OK for mass consumption shouldn’t paintings be too?
What else about the women? The idea of media image/self-image, what is beautiful and what is material seemed easier to ask by using input from women featured in mass media. We are still a culture arguing over beauty, especially at women. Screaming an argument at them from every media outlet. To be real is to be vulnerable. To be fake is to be powerful and desired.
Although, the baseball card paintings have an interesting story too about masculinity and sex.
I am also a big believer in the larger conversation in art. Any art. And using women as subjects in paintings calls to the tradition of women in portraiture. The question that occurs most often in creating the work for me is “what is the current outlet of women’s portraiture?” If this outlet is no longer created in or with painting and art, where is it? Is Victoria’s Secret Summer Sale catalog our new stand-in for the Mona Lisa? Titian’s Eurpoa is now oddly satisfied by glamour photo shoots of Lindsay Lohan or something found in internet pornography? What are the true renderings of feminine beauty (or masculine beauty.. is it a Calvin Klein ad?) in our culture and what do they say about art, audience, and ourselves?
What about Matisse, Gauguin, Boticelli, Ingres, Delacriox, Goya, Sargent, everyone? Can women in bikinis in a painting be that stunning or sexually charged when we see sex on the cover of every magazine, especially in comparison to the whole of art history before cameras were even invented?
Plus, with sex everywhere, if I was aiming for seduction or sex wouldn’t I be a little more saucy about it? I mean, these paintings of mine don’t even compete with an Herbal Essences commercial, a Yoga instructional video, or a good advertisement for toothpaste.
Above, see some other steamy paintings over the years, top to bottom:
1. Jean Honore Fragonard - The Swing - c.1768-69 from arthistortarchive.com
2. Titian, Europa, about 1575–80 from www.gardnermuseum.org
3. Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus c. 1485-86
And 4., my new namesake from crimelibrary.com
That might be more of a rant than a blog entry, but it was fun. And no, I have no idea what toothpaste ad I might be talking about. It just sounded right.
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