Ex-gay

Ex-gay, virtual and actual mixed media distressed painting (16" x 16")

This is the next to the last in of the “LGBT Pictionary, Series I” (though according to completion date). Once again I’ve used my own images, as well as those found in magazines, newspapers and the Internet. If the image is not my own I bury it in layers of paint and torn paper. By doing that I distort the image until it becomes an obfuscated part of the mixed media distressed painting. Often the images are lost completely. I know they are there, but the viewer may not find them. Sometimes, however the image is a historic image in the public domain. In such a case I don’t purposely loose it in the layers of paint though that may happen.

I have also set type, made lines, scribbled, written, and mangled various parts and layers of the painting. During the entire process I exert my type A personality and dominate the disorganized happenstance by pushing everything into a series of larger and smaller concentric squares of exact dimensions and lines. That organization is peculiar to this set of paintings. In the past I have used straight lines at various angles to organize the space in paintings. I’ve also used geometric shapes and lines mixed together to create abstract shapes in older paintings. In the future I may use the same or different organizational techniques to create unity within the accidental process of the distressed mixed media paintings.