All posts tagged piggyback art

Threats and Presents

PREBREEN

When Ann brought this home from the flea market, my first impression was that this was just an angry big eye painting – maybe a copy of a 16th or 17th century work. After awhile, it began to bug me that it was glowering at me. There is a simmering tension in the face, intensely cold, with deadpan eyes that nevertheless somehow convey anger. When you drop your gaze to the mouth, then back up to the eyes, the expression fleetingly appears to flit between seriousness and amusement, but it could just be your own mind playing tricks. Maybe he was joking after all, like the Joe Pesci character in Goodfellas, ‘you think I’m funny? I’m here to amuse you?’As you move about the room, the eyes follow, hammering you with disapproval! This tension is palpable – a personal warning to the viewer!

So I threw a nun’s habit on him to see what he would do about it. He tried to leap out of the painting to get at me, so I knew I was pushing his buttons! To jack the tension up even more I gave him an Uncle Sam style pointing finger and and arm cocked with a piece of flaming coal. This effectively turned him into an avenging transvestite Christmas angel so I wrote -’ Have you been good this year?’ ‘I will only hurl this coal at your head if YOU feel you deserve it!’ This puts the ball in the viewers court and makes the painting all about them. Makes them the decision maker. DO you deserve to have the coal flung your way? I also wrote -‘Well do ya punk?’

I softened the edges with Christmas iconography just enough, so that you can get out of the room unscathed, that is, if you exit walking backwards with your eyes on the painting, because you know, if you take your eyes off, that cocked arm is going to let loose and it’s aim will be dead on.

Click on the link below this painting if you want to see a long-winded video deconstructing the piece.

POSTBREEN

To buy this painting on Ebay, go HERE.

To see a long-winded video describing my thought process while painting this piece, go HERE.

Beauty Treatment

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Since I’ve listed this I’ve changed it already – breened myself so to speak! As I was writing up a Twitter entry I realized what I was writing should be in the painting itself! The main text I added says – ‘Halibut Face Entices Herring To Their Doom – But Is Really A Nice Person! The other text is tiny and hardly visible. It says “This end up!” on all sides, because it does not matter which way you turn this painting, any side works! I also signed this painting on all sides so you can hang it any way you want!

A fellow artist sent her own work to me to breen, and, as usual, it took me a couple of years to get to it. And after all that waiting, this is the horror I concocted! Well, can’t say she didn’t go in with eyes open! To see Anna’s work, unmolested, go here.

The first thing I envisioned was to create a thick ring of herring running around her face. But then I was stumped. Here is where divine inspiration usually comes in to help me finish a piece, but not this time! While I was painting the herring I kept flipping the work and realized that no matter which side was facing up, it looked like its natural orientation. The face was the only thing interfering with this spin art effect. But I wanted to keep some part of the original painting, so that nixed a four mouthed cyclops. Naturally, the solution was to keep one eye and render a slightly cubist halibut face with features pointed every which way! Sometimes you just have to know when to stop!

My inability to know this point is my greatest strength and greatest weakness – that is – if you don’t count my inability to paint a cat to look like a cat.

To buy this painting, go here.

POSTBREEN in
Can be placed on any side!

What Year Is It? This Artist May Still Be Alive!

All posts tagged piggyback art

Threats and Presents

Beauty Treatment

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