Always learning, never getting better

Iannis Xenakis, oil on canvas, 9"x7", 2023

I've done a couple of smaller paintings the last couple of weeks, as life has been insanely busy. These paintings have been an opportunity to work on my technique. In every painting there are new inventions, new to me at least, from things often as simple as how to hold the brush to stumbling across new color balances. I've always felt that way: there has always been something I learned in every new painting. You'd think paintings then get better over time, yet this is not the case. Prehistory was as much art as modernity, every period has its ups and downs. I'm working on getting a website together (it'll be here soon) and I've looked at many older and really old works in the process. Since this is a Top 100 blog I'll share some of the history with you: Here's first Lenny Bruce, from the Top 100 1999. (The work was most likely created in 2000.)

Top 100 1999: Lenny Bruce, oil on found photo, 5.5"x8.5", 2000

The next one I don't know, don't remember much about. It must have been made around 2003 or 2004, as I was experimenting with techniques like those used in this work on paper. I do remember it belonging to a Top 100. I estimate the size being about 3 feet wide. The slide was simply labeled: Amazon.

Amazon group, acrylic and charcoal on paper, c. 2x3 feet, c. 2004

This painting, again I have no idea where it is, might have been the first Cat Power painting, perhaps also from 2004. I think this is 24x24 inches. I used a sponge for this one. Click on the right column on the name Cat Power and see 28 posts over the years that featured a painting of her.

Cat Power, oil on canvas, ± 24"x24", c. 2004

I do know where the next one is though, it's in a box that houses the Top 100 2002.I dragged it out recently because the name came up in conversation. Jad Fair seems to be well connected to the art world. The painting was an illustration for a Half Japanese song.

Jad Fair, 9"x5", acrylic on wood, c. 2003

A grab bag of musicians

Alvin Curran/Giacinto Scelsi

20th Century avant-garde classical music really has a presence this year in the top 100 as it had once before in the late eighties. String quartets #3 and #4 by the Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988) and Canti Illuminati by Alvin Curran (Am. b. 1938, lives in Rome) all scored points in 1987 and again in 2022. Neither of these musicians I had painted before (I started illustrating the top 100 in 1990.) Portraits for both are thus long overdue. Scelsi featured in the Top 100 1987 (Curran did not,) while Curran is in this year's list (Scelsi is not.) The current format of double portraits without duplicates allows me to catch up on painting musicians that should have been painted in the history of the Top 100 but were not. Scelsi was a mentor and friend to Alvin Curran and Canti Illuminati (seen by Scelsi weeks before his death) is a sort of hommage to the old master.

Pat Conte/Andalusian (Rom) guitarist (from a photo c. 1900)

Now Pat Conte, the American multi string-instrument/guitar player, I did paint before, twice, but not as a musician but as a collector of old 78 records. This year Pat Conte returns as collector, and originator of the series The Secret Museum of Mankind, with a 78 called Vlach Longassi, from 1929 of the Andalusian Gypsy guitarist Oudi Jorghi. The track is included on the latest release in the Secret Museum series: Guitars, Vol. 1: Prologue to Modern Styles. I was delighted to find out that the Secret Museum was alive again after silence of more than a decade. I bought the record and a second tune also is listed in this year's 100. Fiesta Mora en Tanger by the, at the time, famous string quartet Cuarteto Aguilar. They were famous enough that there's pictures of them on line. I painted all three of the brothers and the one sister Aguilar.

Cuarteto Aguilar

They're not all new faces I'm painting. Take Cat Power, for example, just like in all of the last twenty years she's in this year's list once again (be it towards the bottom this time.) A brand new record appeared on the market but this new one failed to make the list. Not that I don't like it, but hey, times change. The song in the list is an old one: Metal Heart appeared first on Moon Pix [1998, Matador] and then again on Juke Box. [Matador, 2008] The song is one of her classics and a continuous (as far as I can tell) presence in her live sets. These live sets, by the way, for the last 15 years or so, feature Erik Paparazzi, who also played bass on Moon Pix.

Erik Paparazzi/Cat Power

Another familiar face, who was painted numerous times over the years is Michael Hurley. Like Cat Power, I'm a longtime fan of this musician who debuted on Folkways in 1964, the year I was born. In his eighties now he is still recording and performing. The track in the Top 100 was recorded in 2016 and is called O My Stars, a song that features the Swedish folk duo My Bubba. I painted the blond one from the duo but I took me a while to figure out who was the blond one and who the brunette was. I figured it out: The blonde one is My, while the brunette is Bubba.

Michael Hurley/My Larsdotter

Alright, I'll do one more before I let you go. Unrelated to any of the five above is a track by Piaroa Indians recorded by Pierre Gaisseau in 1949 in Colombia during the Orinoco-Amazon expedition of 1948/50. Some of the recording I've had for a long time on an album called The Columbia World Library of Folk & Primitive Music, Volume 9: Venezuela, but did find the original release Musique Primitive Indienne that not only has longer versions of some on the Columbia LP, but also uses a different set of titles. Bark Music of the Piaroa has been in the Top 100 several times but this time it listens to Rituel Saisonnier & D'initiation : Musique De Nuit (1). Gaisseau was part of the famous Ogooue-Congo expedition of 1946, who were the first to record the Pygmy people of the rain forests of Central Africa. As important as that expedition was, Gaisseau is even more famous for the film Sky Above and Mud Beneath, filmed in 1959 in previously unexplored areas of Papua New Guinea. The film had an enormous impact on the "Western mind."

Pierre Gaisseau/Piaroa bark horn player

 

Cat Power, Top 100 2021

Not nearly as prominent as in earlier years, the Top 100 2021 still retains a Cat Power presence. The song Wanderer that closes out her latest album of the same title and is listed for the third consecutive year. The decision of who to couple Cat Power with in the double portrait series was not as easy as you would think. The recording of the song in 2018 was truly a solo effort. Cat Power (Chan Marshall) wrote the song, played all the instruments and did the vocal parts as well. She also produced the record. I settled for Adeline Jasso who is part of the touring band for the series of concerts following the Wanderer release. She plays guitar in the band. I figured it would make an interesting juxtaposition as the look of Jasso is somewhat reminiscent of how Cat Power herself appeared earlier on in her career. Jasso was the guitar player when I saw Cat Power live in Tampa in 2019. I could have potentially met Cat Power following that concert as a friend of a friend is also a friend of Chan Marshall. I did not pursue to meet her then, I did not feel I would have anything to talk about. (Of course I feel pretty self-conscious about it as I have painted Cat Power about 75 times over the years.) This friend of a friend is the artist Kalup Linzy, a wonderful video and performance artist whom I met a few times. He is also the source of the photograph I used for Cat Power's portrait. I used that same photo for the Cat Power portrait that was still due for the Top 100 2020 as well. The drawing represents To Be a Good Woman at number 78 in that list. To Be a Good Woman is from the 2002 album You Are Free. Both To Be a Good Woman and Wanderer are highly ranked in my "all time" list of songs. The drawing (that I did before the painting) follows the original mid-action pose in the photograph that I changed to a more natural pose that you see in the painting.

 

 

There's Cat Power songs in the Top 100 2020 too!

Cat Power
14 x 11 inches, pencil and spray paint on paper, 2020

One of the few popular musicians that I continue to listen to is Cat Power. While last year saw a spike in Cat Power songs in the Top 100—a new album, Wanderer, was released—this year's contributions are less numerous but still significant. The song Wanderer was #1 last year, and currently standing at #12, it is the highest of three of her songs in this year's list. The other two are In Your Face also from the 2018 album Wanderer, and her best known song Good Woman returns as well. The latter is from her 2002 release You Are Free. The above drawing I started last week but initially it didn't click, so I started a new one from the same photograph by Christian Lantry. Both of these drawings I continued to work on with just a single pencil for several days until both satisfied me as a representation of Cat Power. The second one then is here to represent In Your Face in the Top 100 2020.

Cat Power
14 x 11 inches, pencil and tempera on paper, 2020

The Top 100 2019 is finished!

György Ligeti

All images 14 x 11 inches, oil and spray paint on canvas, 2020

Les Siècles Live: György Ligeti (2016), directed by Francois-Xavier Roth featuring cover art that was found by the publisher Actes Sud on this very blog. A beautiful CD on which Les Siècles perform Six Bagatelles, Kammerkonzert, and Dix Pièces pour Quintette à vent. The last of these is in the top 100. I'm still very proud of their use of my painting. This one is brand new though.

Cat Power

For the upcoming Top100 2019 exhibition this painting replaces the concert drawing I did in September of 2019 that was to illustrate the track Robbin Hood from Cat Power's latest album Wanderer. The image above comes from an earlier Cat Power album Moon Pix. In the book called You Should Have Heard Just What I've Seen both my work, and the Moon Pix cover are featured. The Moon Pix cover is a work by renowned photographer Roe Ethridge.

Otto von Schirach

A track from my favorite hardcore disc Threat: Music that Inspired the Movie (Halo 8/King's Mob, 2006). The track Champagne Enemaz features a remix by Otto von Schirach of the recording by the Californian metalcore band Eighteen Visions. After Sun Ra, who I painted recently, von Schirach is yet another musician in this top 100 who claimed to have been born in outer space. His biography states that he was dropped either by UFO or Graviton in the third point of the Bermuda triangle, which is Miami. He was indeed born in Miami, FL in 1974 from German and Cuban ancestry. His grandmother practiced Santeria. As customary with DJs, I had assumed that breakcore musician von Schirach was an assumed name but apparently it's real. Typing von Schirach into Google search results in the biography of the infamous Nazi politician Baldur von Schirach.

Three Women performing 'Harawi'

The track Pasqakuymi comes from the cd Traditional Music of Peru, Vol. 6: The Aycho Region. Heard are women of Socos (Peru) performing Harawi. The women depicted above are not the women heard on the Pasqakuymi but part of a group performing harawi (a style of singing) on a later track on the CD. Pasqakuymi relates to, and is performed on Compadres' and Comadres' Thursday, part of the Peruvian carnaval following Ash Wednesday.

Mergen Mongush

Mergen Mongush is represented in both books (with cd inserts) that I have on the subject of Tuvan throat singing. In Overtone Singing by Mark van Tongeren three pages are dedicated to  including a biography. Mongush was born in Chadan, Tuva in 1962. The cd tucked in that book features an example of the 'chilangit' style of overtone singing that Mongush personally developed. Alash the track in the top 100, named after a Tuvan river) appears on the cd that accompanies the book Where Rivers and Mountains Sing: Sound Music in Tuva and Beyond by Theodore Levin.

Ubuhuha

Ubuhuha, Rundi Women
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2019

 From the liner notes by Michel Vuylsteke: "The ubuhuha (literally 'to blow') which were formerly performed by by women during wakes, have practically disappeared today." This was written in 1967 when Vuylsteke recorded these two Rundi women in Burundi. The women use their hands as an instrument, like a trumpet, "The resultant sounds vary in pitch, timbre and volume according to the position of her hands and the tension of her lips." From the LP Burundi: Musique Traditionelles on Ocora. 

Talking with my friend Jade before the Cat Power concert last Friday he mused that most of the musicians I painted would be unknown to her. I told him that I wouldn't be surprised if Cat Power would be much more familiar to these ethnomusicological recordings than one would expect. During the concert Cat Power used her hands to alter her singing voice on several occasions very much like the Rundi women, most poignantly during a cover of Bob Dylan's Hard Times in New York City (perhaps to mimic Dylan's nasal voice). One of my favorite tunes she performed that Friday was Robbin Hood from her latest Wanderer. The following drawing done during the concert then becomes the official illustration for the song in the Top 100.

Cat Power
12 x 9 inches, pencil on paper, 2019

Nothing Really Matters

Cat Power
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2014

"When I see your face in the crowd/With a look of obsession" are the opening lines to Cat Power's Nothing Really Matters from 2018s Wanderer. In ten days she will be performing at the Ritz in Tampa, close enough for me to go. It'll be the fifth time I see her live beating Townes van Zandt and (Dutch band) The Fatal Flowers for most concerts visited. It's the sixth painting this year of her and for sure I will draw from life when I see her in Tampa. The backgrounds now have shifted from golden spry paint botanical designs to abstractions that were done on a golden background about a year ago. These abstractions (see The Golden Paintings) were always meant to be painted over with portraits.

Wanderer Tops the "Albums" list for 2018/2019

Rihanna
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2019

Five songs from Cat Power's newest Wanderer LP made the list of 100. The year 2018-2019 (July 1st until July 1st) is now closed and a new one just began. I'll be painting several more months until all 100 are ready for exhibit for the grand opening of the Top 100 Studio and Archive space. Five songs, four originals (Wanderer, Horizon, In Your Face, and Nothing Really Matters) ans one cover (Stay). Stay is an original from the Bahamian singer Rihanna. Her (original) version is quite beautiful too but didn't make the list of 100 songs. Four of the five are painted as Rihanna's portrait serves as the illustration for Stay. The Cat Power portrait below, painted two months ago, belongs to Horizon. The  final Cat Power portrait for the Top 100 2018/2019 exhibit will have to wait until I go see her live in concert in Tampa in September. It'll be based on sketches done from life.

Cat Power
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2019

"In Your Face"

Cat Power
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2019

It took me a little while to warm up to Cat Power's new album Wanderer, but now I consider it one of the (her) best ever. Besides the title track camping out at number one, In Your Face and Robbin Hood have also entered the list for this year. The album is on top of the album count and Cat Power on top of the musician count for the year.

Wanderer

Cat Power (after Ryan Pfluger)
11 x 14 inches, oil and acrylic on canvas, 2018

Wanderer is out now. I had preordered a copy that came with a 45. My first Cat Power 45. The record is great and my favorite thus far is the title track Wanderer. The song appears at the beginning and the end of the album and my preference is the latter version. The source for the image of the painting was provided by a September 23 New York Times article with a photo by Ryan Pfluger. A painting often paints itself and in this case it meant staying true to Pflugers photograph. All 100 for the current top 100 will be painted on a golden acrylic ground, some with an abstract design, some with none. The blue rectangle in the background here makes it look a cover for the National Geographic.

Maybe Not

Cat Power
13 x 7.5 inches, oil on wood, 2018

Maybe Not is another track from the Cat Power album You Are Free of 2003. "We can all be free" she sings in the song "maybe not with words." A beautiful video set to the song appears as a bonus on the 2004 DVD Speaking for Trees, a movie of Cat Power performing solo set in a forest in upstate New York by Mark Brothwick. The image where this painting is based on is found in the booklet to the DVD/CD set by Brothwick. The painting forms a pair with my previous Cat Power painting of two months ago illustrating the song Fool also from You Are Free.

Fool

Cat Power
12.5 x 7 inches, oil on board, 2018

Fool from the 2003 album You Are Free is the latest Cat Power entry in the Top 100. At least one song from that album has been in the Top 100 since its release and is ranked the highest album by a single performer since that time...16 years ago already. It never gets old for me to paint yet another Cat Power painting. There must be almost 50 now, 27 of which were shown last August at Tempus Projects in Tampa:

Cat Power and the Animals

Cat Power
16 x 12 inches, oil on canvas paper, 2017

Some years ago I wondered what if Beth Orton were an animal what kind of animal she'd be. I suggested she may be a crow. One year later there was a song called Magpie on her (then) new album. Now, what kind of animal would Chan Marshall be? Of course Chan Marshall's alter ego is Cat Power, but I doubt her spirit animal would be a cat. There aren't many of her songs in which animals are named. I recall (from the top of my head) the Werewolf Song, a cover of a Michael Hurley original, then she did Salty Dog, an old blues song but that one's not about a dog at all. The newest Cat Power in my Top 100 is Sad Sad Song in which a killer whale plays a prominent role. The credits are Cat Power's but the lyrics are, in good blues tradition, an amalgam of various verses, some old some new, some hers, some by others. The whale verse appears to have been written by M. Ward, a contemporary West Coast musician. I don't see Cat Power a killer whale though, perhaps a zebra.

To Be A Good Woman

Cat Power
16 x 12 inches, oil on canvas paper, 2017

If any Cat Power song could be considered a hit song it would be To Be A Good Woman. The song comes from You Are Free, my favorite Cat Power album and one of my favorite albums regardless of whoever produced it.

Self-portrait-a-day

Self Portrait as Cat Power: Moon Pix
Blue ballpoint on paper, 12x9 inches, 2017

As one of many New Year's resolutions I decided I would do a self portrait a day. Towards the end of last year I had already started doing the morning pages, stream of consciousness writing geared toward freeing creativity. I found at a thrift store the book The Artist Way by Julia Cameron, a best selling new age self help guide book for blocked artists. Due to an intense teaching schedule I had only made few works in the autumn of 2016. I had nothing to loose. It was a good thing, I'm still doing these three pages each morning in a note book that I had dedicated as a dream journal a few months earlier. The self portraits seem a logic extension to the morning pages. What better way to get back into producing work again than to draw self portraits? Next week I start teaching a drawing class in college and I intend to make the students do a self-portrait-a-day, preferably in the morning. As a teacher to this class I decided I would be a student at the same time, expose myself to the same rigorous regime as I put the students through. I get a fresh start myself in a way. Start over. New year, new beginning. The portraits very quickly turned into a Top 100 extension (as so much of my work does): draw myself as the musicians from the Top 100 appear on their records. I've done it before, some 12 years ago—I was still a handsome fella then—but now as an old man. 

Ghana/Self
oil on paper, 24x18" 2004 

Anyway... the first one, as it was the first one in 2004, in this context is a Cat Power impersonation. The image I started with is the cover of the Moon Pix album. I've used it several times before for Cat Power portraits, it's lovely image. The artist who created the image is  Roe Etheridge. The image is reproduced in a book that features some of my own works as well. You Should've Heard Just What I Seen was published in 2013. Yesterday I wrote a new artist statement for a job application. It's basically an update from the statement at the header of this page. Here it is in full:

"The Top 100 is an ongoing series of one hundred portrait paintings of musicians and accompanying writings every year since 1989. The simple and straight forward concept of the Top 100 has stayed the same throughout almost 30 years of painting. The premise is the shallow vantage point of a music fan at his insignificant home looking out onto a world of cultural importance. While the context has shifted from a hobby to an activity within contemporary art, the essence has stayed the same. The format is a hermetic system in which everything is open and free to experiment, surprise, failure and excellence, open too to different styles and techniques, emotional expression and introversion. The format is both that of a personal diary and of an impersonal archive charting the music an individual encounters throughout a lifetime. The Top 100 is a testament of a life lived in the margins of notoriety and a historical record of the world of music and the scene of the avant garde. Shameless crushes and adorations of musical heroes provide an intimate yet recognizable account of oneʼs humble existence within an unattainable world bigger than ours. That the paintings of musicians are now shown at the same venues as their objects of desire play in, and the painted portraits appear on the sleeves of the sound recordings they illustrate, does not alter the relationship between object and subject. The artist responsible is still that fan. Itʼs all about them, the others."

I might as well forward some other self portraits I did in the past few days. Nothing to be too proud of, perhaps even a bit embarrassing, but here they are regardless. A note about the Amalia Mendoza one is that I think she's one of the great singers of the 20th century but unfortunately the context of her recordings make it less universally so: Mariachi. There's nothing wrong with mariachi but the Mendoza records (I have four of them) could certainly do without. If I had the time, expertise, and equipment, I would reissue all her records without the mariachi. She would sing unaccompanied or, in some cases, just by an acoustic guitar or piano. Her voice does not need all these happy trumpets. The best self portrait perhaps, thus far, is the one where I substitute Nina Simone's face for my own. The image is from her first record Little Girl Blue.

Self Portrait as Amalia Mendoza: Los Exitos
Blue ballpoint on paper, 12x9 inches, 2017

Self Portrait as Nina Simone: Little Girl Blue
Blue ballpoint on paper, 12x9 inches, 2017

Cat Power (again)

Cat Power
20" x 16", oil on canvas, 2015

In the top 100 of 2014 Cat Power was the highest ranked musician, again. Her song American Flag, from Moon Pix of 1998, was in 2000 the first of her songs to feature in the annual lists of 100 that she dominated since. 2000 was also the year I saw the first (of four) Cat Power concerts. The 2014 edition contains five of her songs, this then is the fifth painting of her in a year's time (it's actually a do-over illustrating the 2012 song Real Life that had been represented by a photographic image appropriation using one of the surrealists' techniques. The source for the painting above is a photo of a youthful Cat Power taken somewhere in the mid nineties). I have lost count but the total Cat Power portraits I painted since 2000 must be nearing fifty! (I don't know if I should be proud or embarrassed of this feat.) Anyway, the Top 100 2015 has started and no sign of Cat Power dominance thus far. No, tomorrow will be a flashback to the very early years (mid eighties) of the top 100 when Laurie Anderson had a string of songs in the list. I will bring my Big Science record along that I will ask her to sign. Tomorrow she will present a lecture discussing her work in the ArtSPEAK series hosted by the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery in Fort Myers.

Wonderwall

Cat Power
6" x 6", oil on canvas, 2014

Classic rock is one of those genres it is best to stay away from. Yet it is that music you are surrounded with all the time. The radio, the bars, at parties, it seems to be the default setting for the music of my generation. Of course, as it is with every genre, there are some great recordings out there. With classic rock they are called anthems. Let me propose a top 10 of classic rock anthems. Just out of the top of my head the following come to mind.

1. The Flaming Lips – Do You Realize?? (2002, this has to be my all time favorite)
2. Oasis – Wonderwall (1995, I like Cat Power's version the best though)
3. Led Zeppelin – Since I've Been Loving You (1970)
4. Aerosmith – Dream On (1973)
5. Steve Miller Band – The Joker (1973)
6. Adele – Rolling in the Deep (2010)
7. The Who – Baba O'Riley (1971)
8. Black Sabbath – Iron Man (1970)
9. Lynyrd Skynyrd – Free Bird (1976)
10. King Crimson – The Court of the Crimson King (1969)

That was actually pretty hard to come up with ten of them on the spot. You may notice that there is only one female performer included in the list. Most lists of classic rock songs probably don't feature any as it continues to be a rather chauvinistic genre. I've come to live by this golden rule if it comes to evaluating genres and eras of the 20th century and beyond. If there aren't too many women involved with it, it's most likely devoid of any real meaning. There I've said it! Wonderwall in the version of Cat Power was already in the bottom part of this year's list when I heard it on a Tumblr page maintained by one of my college freshman art appreciation students from Punta Gorda. A rather unlikely source I might add. Wonderwall was recorded live in the studio by John Peel for BBC radio.

Cat Power

Cat Power
10.5" x 8.5", oil on wood, 2014

I don't know how many times I've painted a portrait of Cat Power, it must be up to thirty by now with only half of that, at best, living up to my self imposed standard of quality. This image, taken from the cover of Moon Pix, I've painted four times, this one I believe is the most interesting of them. One day I'll show all Cat Power portraits together with all the writings accompanying those paintings. I think it would make a nice exhibit, dedicated to this one "celebrity" as an ultimate expression of fan-ness. I never met Cat Power. I contacted her once, attempting to meet after a concert, but to no avail. The closest proximity of me meeting Cat Power, besides from being at the front row of a concert, is in this book called You Should Have Heard Just What I've Seen, in which both my work, and the Moon Pix cover are featured. The Moon Pix cover is a work by renowned photographer Roe Ethridge. 

The painting reproduced here must be attached to the Moby Grape cover Naked if I Want to, the third Cat Power song in the list from her 2000 The Cover Album release, as both Metal Heart (from the Moon Pix album), and Names have already been designated. On my mind however, as I painted this today, were the lyrics to song Names, and to some of the commentaries on YouTube I read while listening to the song just yesterday night. One thing I never noticed before in the lyrics is that there is a pause after the line "Her father came to her in the night." It's a rather shivering pause at that, but the one comment that affected me the most was by a listener who added another verse to the lyrics: "Her name was Imogen. Her momma died when she was 16. She was so sad she was nothing but grief. I hope one day she'll come back to us." I can only assume that this is the commenter's autobiographical anecdote. Heartbreaking!

Note on the painting: The purple background is an outline of Sly Stone's afro in a painting that I abandoned (and started anew—see previous post).

Cat Power – Names

Cat Power, 24" x 16", oil on canvas paper, 2014/2017

 There are several Cat Power songs in the list this year. Recently I pulled You Are Free from the holdings to be included in a small stack of records next to my player. You Are Free is my favorite Cat Power record but I hadn't listen to it in a long time. Most of the songs from the LP have featured in my Top 100 but curiously enough it was the song Names that made the biggest impression on me this time. Names had never featured in a Top 100 list but is as beautiful, intense, and interesting as some of the mainstay songs. The song is a counting song in which a series of children are described who progress in age—one year for each new name. The process of the painting is rather curious, as I seem to switch between styles and processes and attitude about three times a month. Cat Power was painted over the course of five days. While I'm in the process of reroofing my house I took five minutes her, five minutes there to work the painting. Every time I needed to go to the studio to pick up a tool or a piece of lumber Cat Power greeted me upon entering and invited me to take another five minute break. The first three days of the process the painting existed as a monochrome purple but after that colors fit in real easy. So it's a bit of a casual painting, without stretches of real focus. Well, the painting is done but the roof is not even half way there yet. (To be continued...)

Elizabeth Peyton

Top 100, 2004: Cat Power
11" x 6", oil on board, 2004

About fifteen years ago I saw a painting by Elizabeth Peyton depicting the rock star Liam Gallagher. I immediately recognized, in that one painting, a certain kinship in our work. It felt empowering that her work, feeling a similarity in sensibility and attitude with mine, was so highly esteemed in the contemporary art world. There’s a similarity in chronology too; we’re about the same age, started out with somewhat clunky drawings in the late eighties, and moved on to produce small oil portraits of musicians on boards in the nineties. Between the two of us she’s the better painter and for sure the more professional. Where my career was marred by detours and missed opportunities, her’s went straight up. Since the early 2000s I’ve gained a bit of recognition, my work has been shown in the same spaces as hers, even in the same exhibition, collected by the same collectors, and reproduced in the very same book, but my work never gained the exposure her’s did. I’m like her amateur little brother (even though I’m a bit older), not being able to fully get out of the little boy’s room, and still dabbling away at that what started us in the beginning. I’ve never met ms. Peyton.

Elizabeth Peyton
Blue Liam, 17" x 14"
oil on board, 1996
Gavin Brown Enterprise