SOLD
Spray paint on 3/4 inch plywood
18 x 24 inches
2012
Growing up Catholic, I have first hand experience with people living a somewhat ascetic, if not monastic, lifestyle. The priests, monks, and nuns were people to look up to in my youth. Exemplars of people who have attained a higher level of spirituality. As I aged and moved around the world I found that monks (and their spiritual equivalent) existed in a wide variety of spiritual and religious traditions. I also found that these people are also “just people”, having the same flaws, doubts, temptations, and proclivities as the rest of us, and sometimes battling the same sorts of “demons” that plague lives of ordinary folks.
Within the Buddhist tradition, monks generally abstain from intoxicants, meat, selfishness, and crimes in general. Even so, there are legends of deeply flawed monks who also accomplished great deeds. Traditional Chinese stories about the accomplished monk, Ji Jong, are one example.
As a Westerner with no experience in the lands of Eastern Asia, this painting is entirely fictional and pretty naive. I combined an old Buddhist monk, an Asian fishing village at night, a catfish, and my memory of the annual bathtub races that would take place outside my father-in-law’s lakeside tavern in Wisconsin. This old monk is on the edge of a serious personal disaster as he attempts to share his wine with the curious fish. Perhaps all of us, even old monks, have our own demons to contend with.
This is one of my earliest spray stencil based spray paintings. I made more than one version of it using different colors.