The Master's Study

The conception of oil painting began as a statement of wealth. Landscapes with castles overlooking their lands filled with the owner's livestock. Tables filled with exotic foods and expensive crystal to display possessions. Mythological scenes were stories of high society, the privileged knowledge only to the wealthy. Pretentious portraits of royalty; it isn't their faces that glow in these compositions, but their dresses and jewelry.

The painting of The Whistling Boy by Frank Duveneck (1848-1919) is a painting representing a blue collar worker. The work at the time in history helps represents part of a departure of paintings representing an individual’s monetary value. Painting began to be about the average joe, instead of the rich and wealthy. The painting wasn't about depicting treasures, bounty's won, still lives filled with riches. But now the painting was about being human, and the daily toils of life from the average worker. In this context, this was a very remarkable painting of its' time. And what for, would an artist make a painting like this? To get paid? Whom would ever purchase a work of this manner?....

The artist takes the notion even further, capturing a moment where the boy is whistling. A satirical element in many respects: Has this poor boy immortalized himself through oil painting, and is he whistling to spite all of the rich nobility that came before him in this tradition of portraiture? Not to mention the haphazard way the clothing is painted, truly a disgrace to the fine art of painting.

The whistle, not only a final cat call from a disrespectful boy, but also full of such poetry. The artist captures that one moment in time, breathing life into this pile of colored mud we call paint. It’s quite a beautiful moment, and it inspired me with that same type of dynamic humor. I built upon this scene, which adds even more layers to this game that always lead us to second-guess ourselves. My work reveals these hidden elements with a twist of ironic absurdness. (Note, a recent cleaning of Duveneck’s painting revealed a cigarette in the boy’s hand. Doesn’t this change the entire meaning of this work from how it has been presented?)

As we shift from dawn/day/dusk/night we notice a hideous green monster appearing. In remembering the Dr. Hide and Mr. Jeckyl's, Doctor Banner and his evil Hulk side. In the new found NFT artworld, is painting remembering it's ugly pasts? Is the beast rearing its' head? Or is it the artist with the hulking power of the beast now? For value rests clearly inside....

Original oil on canvas created from the Master Study's series of work, 2014-2015 In creating this piece, I feel the formal attributes of the dynamic shifts on the blockchain can showcase the double-sided nature of this work, the history that it contained, and how the work has transformed even further with a digital movement and the implement meanings that continue to flow and evolve from the work. Truly a timeless, and now (block)less artwork.