"Exodus from the Absurdity of Culture"

Oil on panel, 43" x 58" (big)
This painting was Very meaningful for me personally, to create. The model (Mike) and I 
have been friends for many years and actually met while riding freight trains in southern 
California. It was a time of homelessness, cheap 40 ounce bottles of Malt Liquor and 
aimless wandering. Neither one of us live that lifestyle anymore but the process of 
recovery (or what ever you want to call it) has been almost more about unraveling the 
cultural untruths than it has been about actually climbing out of economic poverty and 
substance abuse. Those, of course are only symptoms. I symbolize this idea in the 
painting by showing the absurdity of religion (the big banana in the sky).
The figure is turning his back on this religious, cultural absurdity. Even though he is
tired and worn out from it or perhaps from battling with it, there is a certain calm in the
exhaustion. And even though he seems to escape the scene, isn't it on him? He bears 
the marks of culture, he has gotten it on him. The tattoos are just as much cultural as 
anything else. Even by trying to fight culture, we are only making more of it. Whether 
this is good or bad is for each person to decide, themselves.
And if he is escaping, then where is he escaping to? The pose reminds me of the 
moment when you are hopping a freight train and you pull yourself up the ladder to 
climb aboard. Except this thing he is climbing into has the look of some futuristic thing. 
Some place that we (the audience) are in.
In a way, this painting is also multi-media because in real life I have tattooed Mike 
over the years, so it is the full art experience.

And here is a photo of the artist (me on the left), the model (Mike) and the painting.

Spellcheck By Ismist Memeworks.