Would like to do an announcement and introduce a new talented member of my collection:
"r ckm nd"
"r ckm nd" is an artist and musician from Los Angeles, California. He has studied painting and illustration at the Art Center College of Design and is a graduate of the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. He draws inspiration from memories, traumas and profound life experiences. His interests in psychology and human nature have led to thematic explorations of displacement, duality, and id versus ego, instinct versus control. As such he often prepares for a work by imposing formalist rules upon which to improvise and paint viscerally, almost without thought. The result is art that is simultaneously contained and unrestrained, austere yet verging on the haphazard.
"d nt b s ch sq r "
The first in a series of paintings entitled "Don'ts," this work was inspired by the idiom "Don't be such a square," often used by adolescents to implore a peer to take a chance or break a law. A form of subtle bullying, such seemingly innocuous phrases can affect self-esteem, triggering a repression of the individual self in order to conform to a social group.
"d nt d t"
The second "Don't," this work alludes to suicidal ideation and the classic imperative to the distraught individual, "Don't do it!"
"m k nd f t wn, _______ s m k nd f t wn"
This work was inspired by a cross-country road trip undertaken in hopes of rekindling a failed relationship, one in which the faint glow of an early morning horizon could reasonably be mistaken for the lights of a destination still far away. "Is that the city in the distance? The light of dawn behind the fog? A mirage?" The painting also alludes to "white-line fever," a state of hypnosis resulting from prolonged night driving.