Why I Painted These Two Paintings Can you tell I’ve been looking at Edward Hopper’s works? Hopper’s exhibit at VMFA was wonderful with the added feature of a life-size installation of a hotel room that presented the comfortable yet homogeneous ambience of a 1940s inn. Hopper subject matter was the somewhat existential isolation of humanity that modern life had created. Not really bleak or full of angst like a Edvard Munch scene. Nor do Hopper’s subjects revel in their aloneness in nature as in Wordsworth’s ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’. They are caught up in their internal dramas that we are privy to some, but not all, of the details and we are forced to make our own conclusions. In these two paintings I take a lot of Hopper’s elements (figures in postwar rooms, urban skylines compressed into slivers of windows, ambiguous narratives) and watch what the couples do. A single figure in a painting is a known entity, a portrait. The minute a second figure enters a scene there is drama. As Hopper does, I can only paint the details that I know, but I can’t to control how the images will resonate with you. A perfect example of this: It hadn’t occurred to me, but when we were hanging the show Kirsten Gray said the two paintings were products of the pandemic—of how we all were restricted to homes and apartments to survive. “The King of Hearts” is a short story of which I don’t know the outcome. In “Joey If You’re Hurting So Am I” I still haven’t determined which one of the two is Joey. Both paintings are currently featured in Wonderland at Eric Schindler Gallery Thru October 30th The gallery hours are Wednesday – Saturday 12 – 4pm Left: “Joey If You’re Hurting So Am I” 14x11” acrylic on canvas Right: “King of Hearts” 11x14” acrylic on canvas #edwardhopper #artrva #ericschindlergallery #rva #artforsale #malefigurepainting #lgbtqart #queerart #malefigureart #gallery #interiordesign #interiorpainting #contemporaryart https://www.instagram.com/p/CVVR1afFDJT/?utm_medium=tumblr
