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Showing posts from April, 2017

Silkscreening 101

It became clear to me once I started constructing this series of pop icons layered with text, that their final output would have to be silkscreened onto paper. They lend themselves to this medium, with their hard edged graphic nature and pop art aesthetics. I haven't silkscreened anything in years, so I decided to take a class at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena. What began as the educational department of the Pasadena Art Museum in 1947, has now grown into a viable source for art education here in Southern California for the past 70 years. I have always been drawn to the the creative energy at the Armory since I move down to LA but was particularly inspired to take a class there by my friend Amanda Quinn Olivar, who recently told me about the very first West Coast pop art exhibition which had taken place at the Pasadena Art Museum back in 1962. The exhibition "New Paintings of Common Objects," featured recent work by Jim Dine, Ed Ruscha, Robert Dowd, ...

Unhinged: Alex DeLarge

"Unhinged: Alex DeLarge No. 1" 2017 It's taken me two weeks to complete this next round of images but I think it's worth the wait. Alex DeLarge, the main character in Anthony Burgess' novel "A Clockwork Orange" was a perfect subject to investigate psychotic behavior in this new series of movie icons I'm exploring. Taking stills from Stanley Kubrick's 1971 masterful adaptation, I overlaid text from the book to highlight key moments in the movie. Since the world seems to be unhinged at the moment, I thought it would be appropriate to not only observe the psychotic behavior of our current leader of the free world, but movies that explored and perhaps normalize this behavior. In " Unhinged: Norma Desmond" , I concentrated on the delusional temperament of the fading movie star. Here, I wanted to interpret Alex's lust for brutality and and his intelectual justification for it. As a metaphor for our modern day psyche...

Unhinged: Norma Desmond

"Unhinged: Norma Desmond No. 1" 2017 After spending weeks looking at Trump's face, I needed a break. Yet while watching Billy Wilder's movie classic " Sunset Boulevard " once again, I saw the same patterns emerge from Gloria Swanson's character Norma Desmond. She contained the same narcissistic personality and delusional temperament that I see in Trump. Here was a fictional movie character from 75 years ago emulating the same traits displayed by the new President of the United States!  I suppose I'm fascinated with broken psyches. It's a car crash I can't quite look away from. Having been immersed for years observing homeless people on the streets of San Francisco to my curiosity with people who are hoarders, I always find myself wondering how each individual's mind began to unwind into a cocoon of self delusion and depravity.  We all have a our moments where we reach our tipping point but these...

APRIL FOOL

"Blowing His Stack" We all have our ways of dealing with the political reality we find ourselves in today and I have been moved once again to channel my observations into visual narratives.  Too bad this isn't a joke. Julie Green April 1, 2017 "Dancing on Our Flag" "Russian Set Dressing"  "63 Days in Office" "Deeper and Deeper"