oblivious to our own demise

This would be my most recent work on canvas, completed on the 25th of September 2008 CE. The concept of this piece dates back to a time quite foreign to the time it was converted to canvas, however the correlations made themselves evident in due time.

Shortly after taking my first job, I was cruising with a co-worker on the back of his motorcycle. All of a sudden, this person in the car in front of us starts flailing her arms in an attempt to capture our attention. It was someone that coincidentally we had both known in a previous time, and it happened to be my first girlfriend from back in Junior High. The details that follow are of little consequence, but essentially we tried dating again and a few months later, I was dishing out art in large quantities, most not really having a strong underlying meaning. The original sketch of this one being one of my favourites from that time. Not long after that, she broke up with me, and the sketch started to take meaning. The thumb covering the one eye, I saw as turning the blind eye to that which I should have known was to come.

I began painting this on canvas as a birthday present to a girl friend that I had at the time. This was something that a few short years prior, I would have been vehemently opposed to. I was not an artist for hire nor an artist for gift; I was an artist for self-expression. I produced art for others to merely speculate not to own. I had a temporary change of heart because I was deluded by the feelings I thought were there for the two of us. Just as the original sketch had taken meaning later, the painting of it took on the same meaning shortly there after.

In the aftermath of it all, the painting was left at my house when she moved out, and I have repossessed it for myself. Keeping true to my old concept that I am not going to paint for gift again, except perhaps for my children.