UCLA Gallery

For 3 years now I have been curating art at the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine where I am the artist in residence.  At the LRC Gallery I work hard to find artist that do work about their illness. We have had some great artist showing in the past years..

We have a website for all the work that has been exhibited
http://www.medsch.ucla.edu/LRCGallery/

Our next show hangs on May 9th and runs thru September 1st.  The show is all about Pain. People have been sending in image via postcard from all over the world.

Getting ready for DC

I've been asked to do a mural at the new National Museum of Health and Medicine in DC.  After going back and forth I've come up with an image that is a lot like my "Structural Abnormalities" series of figures with skeletons in them.

This is the final sketch and the color comp.  Final size is 8'x17'.  It will be done in acrylic on panels.  Anna Stump will be assisting me.  Can't wait.

Artwalk is a comin'

This is one of those times with tons going on. curating 2 shows.  Murals in DC, but  first getting ready for the Brewery Artwalk, the big open studios where I live.  The joy of having several thousand people walking through your house.  It isn't too bad but  many people pass all art and just as about my collection of old radios.  Specifically they ask if I collect radios.  My feeling is that anytime you have more than 3 of something you have a collection.  I have 40.

For the artwalk I"ll be showing my new Flower Power series of bodies with flowers in them.  My illustrative, "Love and Animals" series.  I'm serious to see if people are more drawn to the earth tones than the bright cartoonish colors.

This one is titled "Fish loves Chicken".

Next Show at UCLA Med School

Tomorrow I am hanging a show at UCLA with art about aching backs.  I have a few paintings in the show from my Structural Abnormalities series.

In addition, Ellen Cantor is showing her Unorthodox Anatomy series, and NY artist Laura Ferguson is showing her fantastic body images.



Show runs until Mid May.
@ The UCLA Learning Resource Center
700 Westwood Plaza
LA, CA 90095

Working Small - In Progress

About 6 months ago when I started this series of people with patterns I thought I would do a few smaller versions for the artwalk, and just for a break from doing all those larger month long paintings.  I wanted to do a few that I could work on while I was watching TV and sitting at a drawing table.  I stand when I paint and the idea of sitting seemed nice. I do have bad legs after all.

When I first sketched these out I was really unhappy with the shapes.  I'm not sure if they are weaker designs or if I was just used to the larger/longer bodies on the 50 inch paintings.  I was thinking that maybe I should have just drawn torso up rather than adding legs and feet.

With artwalk coming up and my working area covered with large drying paintings,  I pulled these out of storage and went beck into them.  First painting over the smaller floral prints I had started with, then doing a breakdown of the other areas with geometrics and add-ons.

It actually has been nice because the old failed under-painting is adding some nice texture and the process is going much faster then I thought.

These images are 16x20 inches.  They still need all detailing in the flowers and most values bumped.  I'm waiting 2 days for them to dry before I go back into them.  More to come as I finalize them.

Finished

Finally done.  All detailing is done.  Body textures and marbling is all evened out.  Now it is just waiting for it to dry to add gloss.  The big question now arises... do I do more of these happy flower people hoping that the joy of them would make them an easy sale, or head more in the direction of telling a relationship story by having different objects in each body?  Bombs vs. flowers.  Flowers vs booze and pills.

Big flowers

I've been working on this piece for about a week.  I think it is about 75% there.  It seemed like a good answer to the violence of the last rocket painting.  I think the man's hat comes from watching Mad Men on DVD.

Work still to do...  Make dark peddles more irregular both in shape and spacing between individual peddles.  Even out the body color on the right and remove the red.  Maybe add some more blue.  Make sure the overlapping area of the 2 figures is understandable from a distance.

Final should be ready to post in a week or two.