Kurt 2 Painting

Kurt 2 is part of a series of paintings of individual portraits of my heroes, admirations and inspirations. People I love and admire particularly from my interest in music and popular culture, the pretty and the beautiful, alive and dead. I’m interested in capturing the feeling of beauty and the feeling of presence in a pared-down style; the character and the psyche without all the unnecessary details. I’m drawn towards pictures of the ‘charmed' and ‘damned’ of yesterday and today. Figures in their youth and beauty at the moment of time they inhabit before they are about to fall. The source material for Kurt Cobain was a colour photograph. I was particularly drawn to his posture and expression; he appears quite melancholy and subdued, rather than his playful self. His shoulders are slightly bent forward and show a certain vulnerability echoed in his wide-eyed gaze. He looks out with ‘puppy-dog’ eyes at the viewer and here we see a figure desperate for love and admiration. The painting of Kurt emphasizes his character in a brooding, expressionistic way. His slightly pouting lips, ragged hair and the shadowed crimson eyes give references to paintings of the Romantic tradition. Viewers can easily relate to Kurt in an empathetic way, ‘the be-loved’ Kurt Cobain. I hope to move the viewer with images of beautiful style, execution and sentiment. A contemporary reference of the painting is it’s tight square crop, which adds impact and drama and catches the eye to rest on a gorgeous colour palette of pink and green. Kurt is surrounded by a mass of gorgeous lovely yellow hair; he looks hip and cool. Contemporary in feel, this Kurt painting has been undeniably thought about in application, using traditional oil methods of building up sections of paint and paint layers within the face. This detail is nicely balanced and works well with the loose brush marks of his jacket and t-shirt. Working in my home studio, I completed the base layers of this painting in December 2019, at the same time as the other two paintings from the series, Kurt (Tribute to Kurt Cobain) and Kate Bush. Utilizing the same technique, I started with a black background and removed with a tissue the black paint from the canvas to the parts of the face where the light falls. I mixed a range of skin tones on my palette and worked from the lightest to darkest tones. Kurt 2 was finished in February 2020. I wanted to show the romanticism and utter decadence of the creative genius. Kurt’s gentle and almost feminine nature is ever present; this painting glows with his yellow hair. Allowing the viewer to escape for a time into a nearly perfect World.