The Bulgarians

The first of the major paintings: Complete.
With the large paintings, the driving visual cues will start from repetition. As I look at this painting online, for the first time I realize that all these stripes make it look a bit like a golf shirt. Or, let's say Rugby shirt... that's easier to live with.

Next up: Afghans in matching tracks tops.

Also, last week (during one of our few wintery days) I gave a talk at The Toronto to School of Art.Thanks to Peter Kingstone for inviting me to talk to his class.

It was my first chance to talk about the project to an audience so while it was fun to discuss my earlier work and how it segues into this project, it was more personally relevant as the act of talking helped me clarify some things.

Specifically, (and though this should be totally obvious to me) only during the talk did I realize that while my earliest military/fraternity paintings were about the contemplative possibilities of violence, this project engages the contemplative possibilities of the boredom that stems from the-lack-of-violence. Well, I knew that, but like so much of my practice, themes and thoughts are often latent and only announce themselves after some gestation time.

Yep, it's all about contemplation. Probably, I think too much but have a crappy short-term memory.