The Towers (1957) Los Angeles
“I’m going to do something.” Italian immigrant and visionary Sabato “Simon” Rodia, un-trained and un-skilled, built the towers by himself.
Probably the most interesting pattern I picked up from showcasing my work, was that people tended to fall in love with the illustrations where I had allowed my instincts to take over fully and do exactly what I wanted to do with my art. Whereas, the illustrations where I had doubted myself, hesitating over details, and didn’t follow my intuition, was less popular.
This made me think of advice a friend(a fellow artist) gave me recently:
“Just follow your feeling, the feeling that you have when you are painting, that would be the real you. Dont lie, be honest to what you are making”
This body of work examines the culture of blue-collar, middle-class individuals returning to the hometowns and neighborhoods that they originally attempted to escape. Each portrait reveals the connect and disconnect between suburban landscapes and their residents, while also presenting questions such as “What has my life become?” and “What will everyone think of me now?“
Conveying portraiture against the repetitive quality of the cookie-cutter houses that surrounded this social group is my effort to present the faded memories and faded ideals that are so common with this cyclical experience. The sentiments about this homecoming are represented by facial expressions that mirror a psychological state of “settling;” an acceptance that they have come back to a place that they will possibly never leave again.
“I paint people,” Freud said, “not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.”
by Carol Hopper
This portrait is of a mugshot of a criminal with pencil drawing on recycled tissue paper.
Portrait of the Late Mehran Lotfi (2004) by Iman Maleki
Charcoal on Paper
Tigerbite Illustration
He was a postal clerk. She was a librarian. With modest means, this couple managed to build one of the most important modern art collections in history.
