Meeting of Fronts

Meeting of Fronts
162"x32"
Oil on Canvas

I call this the centerpiece to my show. Being 13.5x2.5 feet in dimension, it was balls to paint, but really fun. It came to embody far more than I originally projected upon it when I had the idea. It looks at ones sense of self as defined on an individual basis and as part of a group, and the complex balancing act one must perform in order to navigate the pressures of belonging and conforming. The subjects are the men from my swim team as they were in the week after our state championship meet. Still dripping with the bittersweet residue of accomplishment and disbanding. In other words at the peak and base of a mountain. I like to think of this as a land scape.

This is the piece that I mentioned in my journal, having made it to New York... which, by the way, was sold!

Artist Statement:
This body of work explores commonality on the basis of the body. So ripe with potential to communicate, I wanted to explore what information is accessible in the absence of recognizable external features such as clothing, hair and the face with it's connection through the eyes.

Having been part of a swim team for 10 years of my life, I've found many of these features to be denied, and head-shaving to be one of the most radical. A practice equally rich with history, meaning and significance, there is a transformative power to head-shaving, and when the action taken into a public realm as an exercise done in and by a group the notion of self is challenged. The head becomes a multiple, the outward individuality is negated, and there is a complex engagement between unity and conformity. This series of work ultimately explores the more intimate influence that alteration of the exterior has on the interior.

_{The image quality is fairly lousy, but since the canvas is 13 feet wide, that sort of quality is unavoidable if I don't splice individual shots together. So sorry for that.} :/

Image (c) Jeffrey Swartout/lydario

WHAT THE BALLS?!
To the right there's a section saying 'camera data' and it lists the camera type, date, editing software and so much more... info that, since my friend documented the show for me, I wasn't even keen to. Deviantart, you clever shrew... you scare me.