Johnny Cash Vs. The Marlboro Man Painting

Johnny Cash was inspired by my father, a hardworking farmer who loved westerns. He is the Marlboro Man that the piece refers to. Which makes me Johnny Cash. Alongside my father at this time I was embroiled in embodying the artistic process in my work. In this particular work I did just this by making my own stretcher (left exposed and peaking through purposefully to give the viewer a full view of all the pieces), sewing together my own canvas from discarded scraps I found around my studio and, and reusing old canvas on the left over from an over sized self portrait. This along with breaking down the idea of paintings to their basic components of stretcher, canvas, gesso, primer, and gesture I was essentially creating every painting ever with each work from this series. By mixing marble dust with my gesso I allowed for texture to be created and each brush stroke to stand out from the canvas, creating a unique surface texture that reaches out from the canvas and into the viewers space. This piece is made of 3 separate panels screwed together to make one cohesive work.