Painting on Photographs - Oggling After Googling

A few years ago I did an exhibit of 11 by 17 black and white prints that I painted on with soft pastels. They were photos of posters atop posters atop posters in the East Village at a time when the neighborhood was on the cusp of gentrification. When the streets still was rogue vitality. When new small shows and performances occurred nightly near by.

Small posters were covered over and replaced by newer posters and others were ripped by vandals or patriots. My analogy was that the current tenants of the East Village - those with marginal income - would be replaced by those more affluent desiring an urban chic environment sans criminal element. And family of five or seven would no longer live in a studio apartment.

The posting of the ephemeral billboards was itself a minor crime...probably much more frowned on today. Today when both CBGB and Tower Records are gone.

iGreed and iTunes and iIncorporated.

But, there is still art....maybe.



To some small extent the Internet for me is the new East Village. There is crud and there is art and there is beauty among the porno rats and the barb wired pop up ads. And sometimes a search reveals a small buried treasure. And then you can be happier as you gaze at pearls and at Manet like grace.

I am attaching a jpg pic I have modified - played with to an extent as prepare the potential backbone for further manipulation - once printed and then obscured and possibly glorified by mixed media. Who knows.

As of now the pic is untitled. But it is inspiring.