Something old

Looking for something down in my old files I found some paintings that I don't think I ever posted. I did these 2-3 years ago. They were commissioned by a fellow very interested in Asian art who wanted to organize a show of paintings commenting on contemporary asian art. Sort of a weird idea, he had concepts about the commentary and basically wanted to hire painters to execute the concepts so that he could shop around the show. I was hungry for any kind of commission and agreed to do the paintings for a nearly ridiculous price. The experience left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, which is probably why I never posted these. They are Takeshi Murakami and Ai Wei Wei dressed up as the Ingres painting of Napoleon, switching out all of the details for references to the artists. Ingres and I do not share much in common in technique, with my love of painterly texture and loose fresh brushwork pretty much at odds with the tight perfection of his licked surfaces. Luckily, the client was not looking for exact replication so much as getting the idea across - straight copying Ingres would have driven me even further up the wall. These are big, 4 feet tall by 3 feet wide. Anyhow, hopefully these provide a nice little break from the constant drawing posts!