Hazvox Walking and Hazvox Singing

Hazvox Walking, 2008, Oil, acrylic, epoxy, metallic pigments, collage, and sand on canvas, 8 x 10 inches
As I was working on this one it became an homage to Man Walking by Nathan Oliveira

I then thought it would be nice to do a close-up of the character.

Hazvox Singing, 2008, Oil, acrylic, epoxy, metallic pigments, collage, and sand on canvas, 8 x 10 inches
These two paintings, were created out of my thinking of Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo, here is the sad clown signing, which is what we are all doing when we are at our best and our worst. Turning pain into art, that got me thinking about the state of being that has been going on since before the first human stood upright, signing to the heavens. Hence the "skin" across Hazvox skin which is a design I whipped up using Jack Kirby's High Father as a primary element.
The song he is singing is "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

There was a time you let me know
What's real and going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Glob

Glob, 2008, Oil, acrylic, epoxy, metallic pigments, collage, and sand on canvas, 8 x 10 inches
I this painting came out of my idea for creating a golem out of paint, so what we have a a portrait of the concept of Painting itself. It has been said that the history of painting is the history of Christianity in the Western World. So I gave the paintings a tri-faced design, which is a short hand for The Trinity. The Trinity, was sometimes depicted as three faces belonging to single body in mediaeval art.

As for why holding a skull, I think that is the essence of painting, the essence of art, the essence of what it means to be alive and living a life beyond basic living. A memento mori (latin: remember that you must die), all paintings are saying that to us, and then the next line is, but I your creation, will live on.
A side from these lofty thoughts, I also want to take a jab at much of my modernist schooling, where the goal of all paintings was paint onto itself. Once An aged teacher took myself along with a group of other "advanced" students though a museum and we came upon a Rubens painting of St. Catherine and the Virgin Mary. The teacher said, "You all know what this painting is really about, right? " There was dead silence - finally I said, "It s about St. Catherine and the Virgin Mary." He laughed, and said, "No it is about this repeating line, you silly puddin head!" -He then proceeded to gesture in front of the painting showing how the fold of her Mother s arm rhymed the profile of the Virgin Mary, and how that fold was rhymed again and again in the painting. This is everything that is wrong with art education. If we think about artwork as being all about the formal devices used to create them, then all other aspects become moot. This is an agenda that turns us all into soulless geometers. The greatest works of art become formalist experiments or decorative luxury objects.
Or as I once heard a modernist wag proclaim, "Real painters, Paint Paintings of Paint, and Paint alone!" This is the monster of painting, standing in the wasteland screaming to be given meaningful form.

Zygote, go for the Bronze

I realized that the small sculpture I made in May, Zygote needed something extra to it, after a few weeks of brooding I realized it needed this 3rd place medal. What is a Zygote but the Third thing that is created from two others. What is Bronze but an alloy a new thing made from two others.

Maxon and Pluton (re-done)

This first new painting, Maxon, 2008, Oil, acrylic, epoxy, metallic pigments, collage, and sand on canvas, 8 x 10 inches is building off of a line I found in Twilight of the Idols, by my main man Nietzsche- He is talking about Socrates and his criminal nature, with the old maxim: monstrum in fronte, monstrum in animo, which means a monster in the face and monster in the soul. For the moster soul face, I did another homage to the painting, "Mask" by Bobby BeauSoleil which I can't stop thinking about.



In fact I reworked Pluton, 2008, Oil, acrylic, epoxy, metallic pigments, collage, and sand on canvas, 6 x 8 inches with the same eyes.

Loady Homage for Johnny Ryan

My good pal and one of my favorite cartoonist, Johnny Ryan was signing books last night at Desert Island I whipped up a small painting of his character Loady McGee as a gift for him.
Loady Mc Gee, 2008, Oil, acrylic, epoxy, metallic pigments, collage, and sand on canvas, 5 x 7

-Jason Robert Bell

Invito and Pluton

Since I painted My Birth, I thought it would be a good idea to paint my conception. Invito, 2008, Oil, acrylic, epoxy, metallic pigments, collage, and sand on canvas, 6 x 8 inches

As for Pluton, 2008, Oil, acrylic, epoxy, metallic pigments, collage, and sand on canvas, 6 x 8 inches, it is another in this sub-series of "Unreasoning Mask", part totem, part android, part god, part tricker, something outside of verbal understanding, the primal face of the unknown.

Birth and Solard

Birth, 2008, Oil, acrylic, epoxy, metallic pigments, collage, and sand on canvas, 6 x 8 inches, This is a picture of my birth, from memory.



Solard, 2008, Oil, acrylic, epoxy, metallic pigments, collage, and sand on canvas, 8 x 10 inches
inspired from Gargantua images by Honoré Daumier.