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Acrylic & Oil on Canvas - 52" x 36" - August, 1999 - Private Collection, San Francisco, CA
This was commissioned for a collection which was heavily slanted toward 40s and 50s abstract expressionism. Essentially this is a line drawing with areas blocked in and again the inspiration comes from the kitschy lamps, wall hangings and so forth which were popular in the mid 50s... hopefully with a touch of Miro. A lot of those popular home decor motifs were the result of craftsmen regurgitating themes and ideas from the great "fine artists" of the day - Picasso, Miro, Henry Moore, etc - and mixing them with the commercial styles of Madison Avenue for impact and "readability". So I guess you could say the influences are triply tangled here.
There really was a vitality to some of that tacky old stuff - I also love Tiki Art from the early 60s and am nuts about Neo-Tiki guys like Shag. I hit Trader Vic's in LA whenever possible (...the last TV's in existence?) Of course what you attempt to do is reconcile the tackiness of the dime store decor from those times with the elegance of the "high art" from which it was derived, which may be trying to fuse two contradictory impulses. Maybe that's why I get so doggone corn-fused!
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