This is Juan.

A bit of back story here, many years ago I was contemplating the possibility of creating a series of paintings that were just based on observation of my life. At the time, I was painting off of magazines such as COLORS, Maxim, Harpers Bazar, and other fashion/ world publications. The notion of painting from photographs of people and places in my life was unappealing to me. I found it more like a class assignment, novel, void of any kind of interest or fascination.

The painting above is my stepfather Juan. It was the first painting that caused me to think there is something here, a concept, idea, whatever that I can work on. This is the reason I am blogging about this particular piece in order to illuminate what is being sought after in my work. Personally I love working from him and he has become one of my favorite models. I find his expressions quite engaging and it also helps that I know him personally to an extent. The approach I used in this painting was that it originated from the photos of the Colors magazine. Many of the photos of people are taken in a face forward and a rather stiff stance. For me it always framed an awkward sensibility that translates well.

In the next couple of weeks I am going to discuss certain paintings I have done or are in the process. In full disclosure I will not go into too much detail on the person or place for two reasons. One it may alienate the audience in the sense that I rather have a person take something away of there own interpretation of the piece. Second, well these are real people that I am close too and I would rather not disclose all their personal information. So there will be editing.