Some new mixed media paintings- and a bit about their meaning.

The first two small paintings were finished last weekend. I'm exploring new materials like layering tracing paper, gold paper, putty, and a variety of clear acrylic glosses and matte gesso to create texture and luminescence. The Gun Lady, the Baby, and Bottom Boy are familiar iconic characters that appear repeatedly in my work. The first two photos are a little washed out with some glare since I used my camera phone to take these pictures.

The Gun Lady was based on an old crime novel cover. I'm attracted to the idea of the "Dangerous Woman." Violence perpetrated by women is unusual- and when it does happen, society reacts much more strongly than when violence is perpetrated by a man.

A ghostly figure of a baby hovers in the background of this image. The woman is not aiming the gun at the baby- but this is somewhat ambiguous. Can a woman who uses violence to protect her child also nurture that child? Or does she become a threat to the baby as well? The gun aligns with the baby's genital area, a nod to the post-freudian feminist association of the phallus as a symbol of power, or possibly the sexist notion of the castrating woman.

The donkey head on this character references Shakespeare's Mid-Summer Night's Dream. In that play, Bottom, a laborer, is turned into a donkey by Puck, a court jester. Titania, the fairy queen falls under a spell and loves the Ass Bottom. The fairy king, Oberon, takes this opportunity to steal the changeling child under her care. A woman can lose her senses as well as her child when under a spell of foolish love.

I use anatomical illustrations when I am concerned about the health of someone I love. I began this drawing, and the water color painting below, after my son, Matthew, was hospitalized for a burst appendix last February.

In that sense- this character is not sismply a representation of the object of foolish love, nor just a representation of my concern for an ailing loved one- but an amalgamation of the two.