Laguna College of Art + Design

I am currently making paintings of the guys I know and love and like to look at, using bits and pieces of the commercial imagery we're all constantly bombarded with via TV, movies, magazines, the Internet, billboards, and even iPhone apps. There is no end to the number of often meaningless composite images that compete for our attention and try to address our particular wants and needs or, in many cases, to tell us what our wants and needs should be. Unlike the messages that we received through popular culture early in the consumer age--I’m thinking of popular imagery of the 1950s in particular, when men were supposed to be heroic, Marlboro men types-- it seems as if it’s no longer possible to filter through the complex virtual web we’ve fashioned, to find a clear narrative about what exactly is heroic and worth valuing collectively. I see a parallel between this confusion and the messy, listless ways we seem to be prolonging our adolescent lives well into adulthood daunted by the number of choices available to us. I’m painting my guys as if they are the male leads of a show with no clear plot. In total, I completed nine paintings centered around this idea. This includes three large pieces: 30"x40", 31"x44", and 36"x48”, two medium-sized 18"x24" works, and four small, 16"x20" pieces. The small and medium sized works are oil on birch panel. The largest paintings are both oil on canvas and the smallest of the large set is oil on linen.