Welcome

“I know you don’t want to see me because I’m “dangerous,” “deranged,” and “possibly the worst being ever created by Zeus—or anyone.” But underneath this chiseled, bronzed exterior beats a heart of gold, probably. You’ll never know the truth unless you come out of hiding and take another peek under my hood.” 

― Gena Showalter, The Darkest Captive

This series was a unique one for me in that it has never ended. I don’t continue to paint in this style, but my study of what our culture decides is the “hero” and the “villain” will never cease to captivate me. This series was also unique in that when I created it I wasn’t yet capable of articulating the fullness of the place from whence it came. For those who know me, you know that often my mouth works as fast or faster than my mind- so to say that I was speechless before an inarticulable idea was something indeed. 

For over five years, I have become interested in the knowing of the bad guy, the anti-hero, the Deadpool of societies, social circles and sides of each one of ourselves. We all have a “shadow” it is called in psychology. We can’t- it turns out- outrun our shadow. For most of us, the people we call “good” are people that have faced and made friends with their shadow. 

This is an excellent metaphor for life: Abraham Lincoln said that “I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.” We have a totally false sense of our own autonomy in the universe when we subscribe to the idea that we can win by the loss of another. The idea that there is only so much good, and you can take it from another to better yourself is in defiance of the apparent fact that we are all a connected organism. Acting against oneself acts against us all; acting against another is acting against oneself. We don’t have enemies- we have members of our own bodies in rebellion. The idea is to treat the illness not to spite the body. 

So we neutralize our own evil by befriending it. Sometimes befriending it looks like tough love, sometimes like nurturing and sometimes like sheer understanding and companionship. 

So that’s the premise. I have been deep inside myself and befriended my own evil. I also have been on many a strange an intimate journey that led me to befriend the evil in others, along with the good. It has changed my view of humanity not for the worse as you might expect, but for the better. They say those who go through hell don’t speak about it, but I do. I cannot claim to have seen the depths of human suffering or depravity, but I have made a study of an intimate view of my own shadow, the shadows of those around me and darkness in events that pain creates. 

From a process standpoint, these pieces began with spray paint. I’ve always had a fascination with spray paint- the method of delivery to the taboo of it. I was interested in murals at the time, but I am more of a rule follower than what you might think, and didn’t want to do anything illegal. (I believe in eloquently and surgically breaking rules; not arbitrarily breaking them) So this was a great solution: using spray paint as a background for large scale acrylic paintings. 

The cameo ideas themselves came about by research by typically reading and film analysis of the villains they portray.