All posts for the month March, 2008

Textless

Prebreen

This is a rare textless breen! 16″X12″ on canvasboard, acrylic over oil?acrylic?, not sure. This is one of a batch of portraits I’ve been working on lately where it seems that l the subjects look very sad. This lady had a particularly long-suffering look, very martyrish with a lot of longing and disappointment as well.  So I turned her into Jesus. I know, I know, kind of predictable, but I haven’t done Christ for awhile and felt a pull towards Him.  I started this before Easter, and of course finished right on my regular way too late schedule.  For those keen eyed art historians who are slumming here, yes, the rabbits are a feeble theft from the Bosch painting, Christ Carrying the Cross.  This is one of my finest Christs, and I didn’t think the text would fit, would detract in this rare case, so I left it out. I was going to write something like – ‘Do I really want to die for these people?’ I wrote this on the back of the painting in ballpoint, which is how I sometimes remember my ideas.

 

Postbreen

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by eddiebreen on March 27, 2008  •  Permalink
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Posted by eddiebreen on March 27, 2008

https://eddiebreen.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/textless/

Kinky Quixote

When I do a commission(extremely rare event) I find I care way way too much about how the recipient will feel about the piece, and that kind of stops me cold. A Kinky Friedman (Musician, humorist, author, ran for Texas Governor in 2006) campaign poster was sent to me a year and a half ago by a friend of an avid collector and it became one of those unbegun projects that brood in a dark corner and regard me with disappointment.

A couple of weeks ago though, I saw a painting of dogs playing Poker and it suddenly blossomed in my mind – Kinky Friedman Plays Poker With Dogs!  I know he’s a dog lover, so it seemed appropriate on that level. I couldn’t stand the fact that you couldn’t see Kinky’s face in the poster, so that was the first thing I crammed in. Then I gave him a Poker hand of his own campaign posters. I then added the dogs at the poker table. Of course, since this is Texas, the democrat donkey is beaten by 5 aces while holding a pathetic pair of 2s. The pig/death/elephant steals the Texas-t-bone from the dog dish. The frog and snail and multiple Dalmation tails are what good ole boys are made of. In an additional theme, Kinky’s hat is now a Quixotic helmut. A windmill giant lurks in the background while a knight with lance, stands ready to tilt with it. I had the poster mounted in a frame and painted over the poster and frame.

Prebreen(same basic design but a different horizontal poster)

Postbreen

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by eddiebreen on March 21, 2008  •  Permalink
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Posted by eddiebreen on March 21, 2008

https://eddiebreen.wordpress.com/2008/03/21/kinky-quixote/

Prebreen

Postbreen

Text says, ‘Both a +nun+ AND a Buddhist, Sister Rita thought it was okay as long as she felt guilty about her state of enlightenment!’About 12”X9” acrylic on oil?acrylic? on canvas board.

This portrait had a real ‘you are going to get it when you get home mister! I’m very disappointed in you!’ kind of look. So I threw her into a nuns outfit because, well, I don’t have to take that from anybody anymore. I know there are nuns in the Buddhist faith, and I started thinking about that, wondering if there were any similarities to the Western variety, I thought, ‘Are their rulers are made of bamboo? Are they more enlightened?’ A hybrid Catholic/Buddhist nun would probably have unusual spiritual characteristics,, so I gave her a big third eye and a heap of guilt and promptly ran out of space. Professional Buddhist Richard Gere will have to wait for another painting to make an appearance.

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by eddiebreen on March 20, 2008  •  Permalink
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Posted by eddiebreen on March 20, 2008

https://eddiebreen.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/40/

Itsy Etsy Paintings

Since the economy is crumbling into recession, and no one has cash on hand to spend on frivolities like art, I thought it would be the perfect time to put 2 small paintings up on Etsy for enormous amounts of money! I am fond of Ebay, but I’m giving Etsy a shot to see how it works out – I don’t know how much cross-pollination there is, it will be interesting to see. The 2 paintings are below:

Prebreen

Postbreen

To see my shop at Etsy, go to:
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5702872

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by eddiebreen on March 13, 2008  •  Permalink
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Posted by eddiebreen on March 13, 2008

https://eddiebreen.wordpress.com/2008/03/13/itsy-etsy-paintings/

Little Bit

Can you believe it?, Barely breened, new Breen for sale!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300206732091

Text says, ‘Although You Make Me Sad, I Still Love You A Little!’About 12”X9” acrylic on oil?acrylic? on canvas board.
Mrs. Breen picked up a mess of portraits at the flea market last summer and all the ladies in them look so sad. The problem with these portraits is that there is no room around the large heads to insert various breenishments. So where I strove to keep the faces intact, I could only lightly breen them in a more more conceptual, minimally vandalized way. This is perhaps the lightest breening of the bunch, yet highly personal. She looks very much like Mrs. Breen!
In the listing is a great Valentines Day pin Mrs. Breen made for me a few years back with a picture of herself in Elementary School.. twins separated at birth!

Fast forward to present, a few misplaced churlish words on my part, stupid fight, and me sobbing and painting very quickly. I’ve been hiding the painting ever since! SShhhhhhhh! Get it out of here – I don’t know how much longer I can keep it under wraps! DON”T SAY ANYTHING TO MRS. BREEN! She probably won’t care too much about the painting, but she’ll go ballistic when she finds I’ve posted her picture! For all those who have begged me for a cheap breen – here it is!

Many more paintings are coming up on line for viewing, and smaller ones for sale, so stay tuned!

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by eddiebreen on March 12, 2008  •  Permalink
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Posted by eddiebreen on March 12, 2008

https://eddiebreen.wordpress.com/2008/03/12/little-bit/

Now I’m Rich and You’re Poor!

Prebreen

Postbreen

This gentleman reminded me of the Englishman who sold us our last house. It was a big house, and old neo-colonial with beautiful detail built in 1912. Anyway, at the closing, as the lawyers clicked their pens and our many zeroed check was presented to M. with a flourish, M. leaned over the table and shook my hand in a hard stiff grip, cutting the key into my palm. “Now I’m rich and you’re poor!” he shouted, with a pitying you sap smile.

He vamoosed with his family to France, leaving a swarm of collection agencies buzzing around our phone number, since it is the only thing attached to his last known address, the collectors clearly never believing that I wasn’t actually M.

M. in this painting is both rich and poor, half the painting showing his unstable wealth, the dollars flowing from Fannie Mae(Couldn’t help being childish on that symbolism!) The edifice held up by a pack of cards, everything pie in the sky high. The hellish right side of the painting shows a death beaver with a home churning tornado sweeping up the houses on the landscape in a morass of destructive poverty.

We sold our house and are renting as we look for a new house to buy in Ipswich, MA. Just when they thought they’d gotten rid of me for god, I mean good! This painting isn’t for sale, I’m trying to put together enough work for a show somewhere, but keep your eyes peeled, within the next day or 2 I’ve got some smaller breens I’m putting out there.

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by eddiebreen on March 11, 2008  •  Permalink
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Posted by eddiebreen on March 11, 2008

https://eddiebreen.wordpress.com/2008/03/11/now-im-rich-and-youre-poor/