Recent commission, but a solid throwback to 2008, when the first 8 paintings of this series were published in the Surfer’s Journal (Second County South, vol.17 #3).
I don’t work from photos all too often, but this series is an exception. The idea isn’t to recreate a perfect photo (waste of paint, just print the photo already), but rather to use the grainy, off kilter shots that surfers and their buddies have taken and saved in a shoebox (or envelope, hard drive, etc…) as mementos of their surfing lives. These moments were meaningful enough for them to stash away, so I reckon they speak volumes more of our real surfing lives than any number of idealized candy coated plastic hors’d oeuvres served up with palm tree umbrellas on platters of tropical blues.
These gritty snapshots just become the jumping off point for each painting, attempting to find something transcendent and universal in each image. This one became a reminder to hold your line when incongruent worlds collide.
*Commissioned as a gift for the surfer in the piece. Hint, hint. I do these upon request.