Thesis Show Painting Number Nine or 9-40

This is an installation of 32 paintings hanging together to make one piece. All these canvases are
24"x 24", so this piece is eight feet tall and sixteen feet wide. It was an interesting experience to group all these together and see them juxtaposed next to one another. It was hard to get a good picture through the window next to the wall, but it sure made for a spectacle when driving by the building.

This is a photo my father took of me and my dog Sage before my Thesis Show. Sage hates cameras and I hate having my picture taken, but we both agreed it was necessary.

Erik Olson and his son getting a closer look.

Thesis Painting Number Eight

Family Dinner (72"x 72") oil on canvas. This was an interesting painting to work on. I sort of dove in and just started with the center focus of the painting and worked my way out. It is a strange thing to paint the people close to you. As you put brushstrokes down you reflect on the lives of your loved ones and come to see them in a different way. You start to appreciate what beautiful people they are becoming as they make their way through life. These Sunday dinner family moments are what are important in life and yet we seem to move through them without taking a the time to let them soak in. I am pretty sure at the end of my life as I sit with more time to ponder that I will reflect back and crave one of the these dinners and the lively conversations that are shared at my parent's dinner table.

This painting will be hanging for the next few months at the Spring Salon in the Springville Art Museum in Springville Utah. They put on a great show and I invite you all to go.

Day one, after three hours painting.

This is after day two. 

 After ten days of painting.

Thesis Show Painting Number 7

This painting titled, Family Home Evening is six by eight feet in size. I limited the tools I usedin order to add to the awkwardness of the scene. I painted it largely with 2 and 3 inch brushes and different types of palette knives. I wanted the family to seem comfortably uncomfortable as they consumed hours of television. The vantage point is from the inside of their TV, as though we the viewers are the actors in their program. "All the world is a stage."   


Thank you to the Earl family for their willingness to be painted in a less then flattering fashion.

  

Thesis Show Painting Number 6

 Follow Your Heart, oil on canvas(48"x 72") was painted with large brushes from a local dollars store. I wanted to avoid the details and make a painting that seemed slightly blurry, somewhat similar to what we experience in a dream. The painting is about those moments when time stands still and the conversation seems to be the center of the universe.

Thesis Show Painting Number 5

This painting titled Metaphysical Gravity is a diptych of two 48"x 48" pieces. There was a lot of experimenting during the process of this piece as I was looking into different ways to apply paint. I learned quite a bit working on these and the final product came second to enjoying the journey.

Lots of funny things occurring... boy and girl, day and night, little color and colorful, linear and ambiguous. It was fun to hide numerous things in this one.

Thesis Show Painting Number 4

Where the Sidewalk Ends(48"x 72") is the fourth painting done for my thesis based on the shaky stage of adolescence. This is a scene a friend and I witnessed in a small Utah town called Helper. The moment happened in the dead of summer and there was a kid walking around in a head to toe gorilla suit. There was an obvious love triangle happening in the moment which led to multiple f-bombs and a few birds flying back and forth. 

Thesis Show Painting Number 3

The fun thing about going to Grad school is that one can make a painting and not worry about where it will end up. Artistically, I have been influenced by film as much as art history. The content of this scene/painting hit close to home because my brother and I were similar ages when our Grandfather passed away. I remember the funeral being an extremely confusing process. I did this painting to reflect on that and how cinema brings up those dormant emotions.

To Shoot and Sing Praise is large(45"x 60") and I painted it mostly with large brushes that one would paint a house with. I wanted to limit my control as I up the scale of the subject.

Thesis Show Painting Number 2

My Thesis was based loosely on what I perceive to be seven different stages of a male's life from where I grew up. This oil painting titled Lightsaber 48"x 72" is the first stage. A phase in life where one feels free and liberated, often uninhibited by what others think.

Thesis Show Painting Number 1

This is painting number one from my Thesis Show. The Artist Enters the Studio a 48"x 48" oil painting was painted with the idea similar to the first scene of a hypothetical movie. The scene where a painter walks into his creative space with the intention of telling a story. Similar to Stephen King's Stand By Me or the more recent movie Atonement, but from a perspective of an artist instead of a writer.  This painting is based on the space I was painting in at the time mixed with images from a movie based around a painter.