“Kilroy was here” is the one of first examples of what we now identify as street art. Popular during WWII, I used the phrase as inspiration for a piece that exemplifies the splash of chaos as WWII enveloped Europe. Often I embed a fortune cookie aphorism in collages as both a message to the viewer and a hopeful thought for me.
Using a recycled piece of Plexiglas from another project, I sought to experiment with the elements of painting—using heavy gesso, mixing acrylic with oil and finally using a high gloss varnish to complete the piece. It occurred to me I had painted terra firma.
I began this painting in 2015. It went through much iteration looking nothing like this final piece. I began to think about how to capture a summer in the Arctic—which is short, cold with a sun that rarely sets. I layered mesh onto the landforms to bring out sharp glints of ice breaking apart. It seemed natural to paint this landscape in black and white. Brrr. Are you cold now?
This painting took a lot of twists and turns. It began when I became fascinated with Clayton Valley in Nevada. The vast desert is rich in lithium waiting to be mined. Lithium is the key component in the batteries which run our Tesla’s and other <cough, ahem> EV vehicles. I decided to add string as a surveyor might. The final touch are several strips of red plexiglass highlighting crucial deposits of “white gold,” or, Lithium.
Oh, what a long history this painting has. Originally, it was a print given to me from a friend. It seemed ordinary until I researched its origins. The SS United States was a state of the art luxury liner in the 1930’s. When I moved to Santa Cruz, I missed New York City and began painting over the print to create the explosive city in all its brightness and clichés. My goal was to create a cacophony of color analogous with the experience of being a New Yorker.
