After Goya

⚠️WORK IN PROGRESS ⚠️
Oil on canvas 30x40”
Reference photo of this girl I used to know 15 years ago by @analogsomer

After Goya’s “Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,”, Plate 43, aquatint etching. 1799.

We see light, not dark. But it is in the dark that we feel goblins and ghosts. Rex Brandt.

Hawthorne once said you have to do the obvious thing before you do the super human thing. Every thought begins with a feeling. I don’t enjoy a painting that asks me to think right away.
There is nothing that falls flatter than a painting that tries to provoke a certain response.
I’d rather be sensitive than smart. The viewer can’t feel unless the artist feels. You can’t take someone else’s breath away unless it’s been done to you. So, go be astonished. Find the greatest truth in the room, and magnify it.
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I didn’t necessarily find a truth but I did find a room for this girl and painted her into it today.
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This piece has been going on for quite awhile. Needs more owl. 🦇
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It’s nice to be able to return to these pieces I had facing the wall for quite some time! I’m insanely overwhelmed at the response to my first show so far, and thrilled to say I’ve got another one lined up in Seattle for Jan-Feb 2021. Thank you for all the supportive emails, texts, DMs, print purchases … you are all making the risk in putting my work out in the world so damn worth it.
#MoreFire