Meet King Fear!

He’s as big as he seems! In my head, when I was sketching this painting out during a work meeting, the painting was mostly chess board. But real life has physics and solidity and how can I fit a chess board into a mouth that’s…smaller than the chess board? Maybe M. C. Escher could have figured that out.

Part of what went into thinking this painting through was a blog post I was reading about European masks of shame from the middle ages. Here’s a link: museum-of-artifacts.blogspot.com/2017/02/medieval-masks-of-shame.html

You can probably find the one I used to model for my monstrosity without looking too hard.

I made this painting as a composite of the styles I’ve been learning with the abandoned houses as a reference to North Braddock. I wanted to use the textures to make something wholly new. I’ve been trying more and more to turn the motifs I use in painting as a semi-symbolic language. The trilogy of concept paintings I did earlier this year (Grocery Knight, Starbucks Astronaut, Angels over Tco Bell) also built into my understanding for this painting. I’ve been trying to make engaging paintings that encourage interpretation without, ironically enough for this painting, being intimidating.

Here’s the progression:

And finally, Matt Morris (famous from a previous painting) has allowed King Fear to move in with him. Hope he pays rent?