On The Bullwinkle Background Series

I approached this series while in art school coming off a long run of work that seemed serious.  I wanted to do something more in line with having fun and shedding the concerns that I had previously addressed in my other work.  As a child growing up, I had always watched Bullwinkle cartoons and marveled at the whimsical backgrounds.  I thought it was funny that they seemed to be drawn so quickly and they would loop so obviously.  As I went on to school, I had this pending obsession in the back of my brain to address my fancy for those backgrounds.  In light of my newfound desire in having more fun with my work, I decided to embark on this series.  I watched hours of Bullwinkle and paused scenes on the VCR so that I could quickly sketch these backgrounds.  They took on a quirky geometric abstraction reference, but without the hard-edges, the weightiness and large scale.  I made these pieces very small and to be shown as an installation, rather than as individual paintings.  My process was to sketch the background quickly and then begin the act of painting a layer of color only to change it again in the near future.  This simple method proved delightful to me, for there was some real appeal in the monotony.  By painting and re-painting each part of every panel, I was in effect creating the type of figure/ground relationship that I enjoyed in other works.  My version of abstraction was derivative of pop culture and at the same time rooted in a process that generates the type of painting that I like to see.

From this series, I began to notice certain themes that carry on into my work today.  I realize that I work best when my obsessive personality comes into play.  And further, I have an inclination toward work that functions more as installation than as stand-alone painting.