Hey

If you get a chance to see, the Portland Phoenix out this week is featuring one of my images on its cover! It's specifically for a story about these gruesome supermax/solitary confinement prisons, particularly ones in Maine. Fun stuff. This was a really fun project that didn't end up taking too long and became another really good texture/space study. A big thanks to Kevin Banks, it was really great working with him again.
Here is the final piece:




And here is a little something I'm currently working on that was inspired by the brainstorming I did for the prison piece:



Images like this really excite me because one of the things that I am pushing myself hard to develop is my ability to paint the underlying concepts/emotions/themes of something rather than a literal translation of text. Sometimes literal translations are simply the best way to go or offer the best artistic opportunity, but the things that I see around that really tend to stick with me are the subtle, surreal compositions of elements that ask you to think and interpret for yourself, to inspire you to feel something rather than try to tell you how to feel. I've been looking at Brad Holland's stuff a lot lately, and he is one of the masters of that sort of thing. Absolutely ridiculous work. Something to shoot for, I suppose.