Tangential Questioning As Inspiration

Controlled Communication
24 x 24

Acrylic on Panel

Sometimes people ask what my paintings are about and I do not feel prepared to answer with much specificity.  When I first started painting I tried to be as direct as I could on subjects, like some reporter of my internal and external experience with the world. Over time I think that my paintings have morphed from reportage to participating in questions that I have related to human peculiarities.

 

The painting above was inspired by individuals in my life who make declarative statements about their belief systems which have been taken directly from dominant media sources, as if media purports truth.  This lead to an interest in Media Systems Dependency Theory, which provided insight into this behavior but not reasoning.

Media Systems Dependency Theory and the declarative statement made prior lead to further questions - about willful subjugation, organizational behavior (a perennial favorite), propaganda in times of war, and on and on and on...  And so it goes.

 

So, from the example above, you can see why I have difficulty with specificity.  My paintings are, I guess, generally, about tangential questioning of things that interest me.