201016" x shoot, maybe 48"? (I should check on that)
Stolen 2/19/2010
This painting is about many things. I love comic books and am a big Neil Gaiman fan, especially his "Sandman" series, which features a group of siblings known as The Endless. Their names all begin withe letter "D", and all personify a different state of being. The main character is Dream (hence the series being named Sandman), but his siblings Destiny, Death, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium all make appearances from time to time. Although Death is a favorite of many, with her goth looks, and Egyptian insipired eye makeup, Delirium is my favorite. In her text bubles, she 'speaks' in a jumble of fonts, against myriad mutable hues. Her appearance is constantly in flux, as is her name. She began, before time, as Delight, but 'something' (which is never explicitly revealed) happens which affects her so deeply that she ceases to be Delight, instead favoring the moniker Delirium. To me, these two words - Delight and Delirium - are among those parings of ideas that frequently have a fine-lined interplay; a short walk from one to the other. Another example of this is the fine line between liking somebody and obsessing over them.
The path from delight to delirium is a short one, and many people seem to enjoy other people's madness. You know the type, they stir the pot, they look for drama and create it where there is none. They amuse themselves by goading people on until the subject is teetering on the brink of madness. These people are not true friends, because they do not see you as subjects, people to relate to, but objects, things to be toyed with. This idea, the question of why one person would seemingly derive so much pleasure from other's angst, is the subject of this painting. The letters are of differing sizes, and are rarely aligned with the ones most proximal. They begin a bit more clear toward the top, with the map of Houston, my home, peeking through, amongst the beginings of swirling ideas. Towards the bottom of the painting, delirium takes over, with obsessive repetition of the word.
Painting for me is a cathartic experience. I pour and drip and brush my feelings onto the canvas, as I pour, drip and brush the paint on. I include maps, with carefully chosen areas either marked or obscured, dependent on the mood of the piece, and my feelings toward the location. I prefer vertical orientation to horizontal when I build my canvases. I use circles because they have no begining and no end. If circles represent closed systems, then the loose swirls represent transition, change, flux and flow. Delirium.
