Painting Title: Alice in Wonderland
Medium: Latex housepaint and watercolor pencils
Ground: Canvas
Process: Airbrush
Size: 23"x57"
Date Completed: 2007

To set up the reference shots, I got as close to the sidewalk as I could. The surrounding scene was chaotic and detached, with frantic commuters hurriedly making their way into the train station that she was sleeping in front of in an evident abyss of loss and isolation..

These rushed shots still took in quite a larger area which I needed to crop out to highlight her against the background: plain steel security gates and rough concrete sidewalks with no shadows or direct lighting.

When I enlarged the reduced image area, details became fragmented jpg pixelations, dots and dashes which I painted in to define form, lighting and depth with considerably more precision.

I applied watercolor pencils- drawing and shading each pixelation that I could distinguish. I then airbrushed subtle pathways of little designs, swirls, and patterns, turning the work into an intricate jigsaw puzzle amongst the shadows. This underscored an alienated equilibrium where her dreaming would appear temporarily free from life's physical and emotional troubles.

I experimented with the illusion of ethereal lighting, corroded rust, night-like shading, and surface reflections; and then coordinated various areas throughout the painting with unadulterated multicolored applications, thereby creating optical mixtures.

The painting was coalesced with an intricate graffiti mural as a metaphor: the dark and grotesque fantasy realm of escape from the futility of life.

In reality however, when she awakens, she will be left on a grimy cold gray city sidewalk in front of a plain gray metal security gate.... and she will continue being passed unnoticed by hundreds of uncaring commuters with loving families, hot meals and soft beds waiting for them in the uncompromised comfort of their homes.

From The Wall

I don't need no arms
around me
and I don’t need no drugs
to calm me

I have seen
the writing
on the Wall

Don't think I
need anything
at all
- Pink Floyd