The Barber Painting

I am a self taught artist that has been creating all my life. I remember as little boy sitting at the kitchen table to watch my father paint with charcoal and oils. So my first works as a little boy were either in pencil or oils. But over the decades, my creative process has evolved from folk art to abstract to my current fascination and love of both pop art and shock art. My work begins with inspiration. Whether it’s from images of the past. An experience or obstacle I am trying to work through or overcome, a color, a revisitation of a previous piece, etc. My current pop art and outsider art features humor, to add to the experience, make light of the situation, shed light on the outcome or the situation, and eventually act as a catalyst to the viewers thought process and realization of the outcome as it pertains to each viewer. I have Asperger's (which for some reason does not appear in the iPhone predictive text... but Dunkin’ Donuts does!). So unless the interaction AND situation is exactly like a previous one from the past, I have trouble interpreting human interaction, cues, and emotions. These include facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, etc. If I happen to notice them, these subtle cues leave me wondering for hours, even days about what they meant. And sometimes even the most obvious of cues have me trying to interpret them for a long time. I have trouble “reading between the lines”. Therefore, I have both a natural curiosity of and fascination for human interactions, how people respond.. human emotions and expressions. I find some even futile, humorous or unnecessary, even though he has a hard time interpreting them. I do however, find it easier to notice when a person expresses genuine sincere joy and appreciation (although at times even that is hard to interpret).