Why the Pixels?

It feels a bit absurd to painstakingly paint small squares.  So why do it? 

I did my first piece like this exactly 20 years ago.  Not one since.  Back then it felt political.  It felt, to me, like people were able to see things only as they wanted to see them.  Like they could take a small part of a story and build a whole from it.  Their own ‘whole’.  It often didn’t matter if that little part they borrowed was even true.  And if what they created was more interesting to them than what was true, and certainly it was, then to hell with what was real.  I was certainly one of them.

I painted JFK and Marilyn Monroe because of that thought.  Two storylines that converged briefly or otherwise.  In private and in public.  In bedrooms and in newspapers. We felt as though we knew something. We didn’t.  How could we?  I mean, I wasn’t even born yet.  Such arrogance.

Sorry.

I’ve since realized that the politics are everywhere.  Now more than ever. Because of that the subjects in the paintings don’t need to be political anymore.  You will find a way to make them so.  If not now, then sometime soon.  So, zoom out.  And keep going.  Please, keep going.

But right, why the pixels?  Because an organic representation of something inorganic feels just as absurd as having to stand half a mile away from a painting to see what it is.

It also looks nice on the wall, and I don’t know what that means for any of us.

Pity.