Individualism- "Decisive Moment"
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| Livin In America "Decisive Moment"
Individualism, all artists were asked to select artworks for this exhibition that is a visual dialogue between the viewer and the artist. It is amazing to me the response I have gotten from painting this one image. All the way from the stare, and frown, "it's deep" look. To the assumption that I was addressing suicide in America. I have had this image in my clipping files for at least twenty years and decided that I would paint it right now this year, 2018.
Just a short synopsis on what and why I painted this image. Elliott Erwitt was an American advertising and documentary photographer known for his black and white candid shots of ironic and absurd situations within everyday settings, this was taken in 1950, Pittsburg, and is so apropos (relevant and opportune to 2018) and was used in the ad campaign "don't laugh you''re next".
If you have checked out the video by Donald Glover, that went viral in May 2018, you would get it! But without that video and music image, we should get it. In the 50's and 60's my brothers and I played cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers without the consequence of being shot by the police. But, in this day and age, you can't even play with a "POP GUN" because it could be fatal, and we still laughing.
With that thought in mind, I've been adding social commentary to my collective memories for over twenty years. Like the painting I painted in 1990's, "Police Games Children Play", now framing the record album of a popular R&B artist. "Get your back up off the Wall", I completed in 2016. Depicting the innocence of summer and looking through the window of an ice cream parlor. Not to be taken out of the context of "why" and "what for".
"Get your back up off the Wall"
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