Broken Arted

Our Lady of the Various Sorrows. Oil, acrylic and watercolor on canvas.

This is an old painting I started in 2005 shortly after Katrina, and worked on sporadically for 2 years. The concept of the Madonna and child came from a study on toxic man-made  chemicals found in the human body, as well as Raphael’s Madonna del Prato (of the meadow). The study looked at human breast milk to determine chemical levels. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers or PBDE was found in high concentrations. PBDE is used in everything from flame retardants in electronics and textiles to long lasting make-up. Chemicals such as PBDE  bioaccumulate through the food chain and are found in many of our foods and water sources, and are passed on to our children who usually have significantly higher amounts of man-made toxins than adults.

This painting is about the effect of our culture of convenience, commodity, and vanity have on our children. The water and trees were inspired by an amazing canoe outing I took through the swamp outside New Orleans.

Here are the finished versions of the screen print I posted earlier. The basic technique was I registered the prints using a pin/tab system, so I could place the linen panels in the exact same spot for the second printing. Then printed the black line onto the linen panel, painted them in by hand using gouache, which is quite opaque and obscured the line. Then I popped the prints back onto the registration pins and screen printed the black line again, giving a sharp, clean line over the loosely painted colors. This has been a great way to try out different color combinations and paint application techniques, as well as loosen up my brushwork.

Here is a pair of screen prints with fish and turtle skeletons combined with the BP logo. I’ll be selling these on this site shortly to benefit the nonprofit organization Waterkeeper Alliance. Click the thumbnails for a full sized version.

This is a portrait I was working on today. The piece on the left is a screen print with wash on linen, and the drawing on the right is the drawing I used for reference from a group drawing session. I printed 9 of this image on some linen panels I made by gluing the linen to MDF panels with a wheat paste / PVA adhesive. These are all going to be colored using gouache (opaque watercolor) and then I’ll print the line on top of the painting. This was a popular technique with Warhol.