Eye For An I
2008 - 11"x12" Acrylic, oil pastel, china marker, pencil, newspaper, on wood.
Finished with two coats of Krylon Kamar Varnish #1312
(Not For Sale)

One of my favorite Paul Klee paintings is Paukenspieler (English translation is something like Drum Player or Kettle Drummer). The eye, bold black lines, and red, became the inspiration for my painting.

The animals are similar to an earlier painting called Deerbirds, but more primitively drawn. I decided to add some newspaper collage and used a section of the Brooklyn Rail newspaper. That is what you see at the bottom with the partial caption "...End of the Kung Fu Judge". I found a second piece, also from the Brooklyn Rail, with the following text phrase.

"The eye by which I see God is the same as the eye by which God sees me".

I liked that it used the words "eye" and "I" and decided to modify it into a confusing repetitive phrase. This is the text you see in the lower right corner of the painting (see photo below).

"The eye by which I see is the same eye which sees me.
The I by which eye see is the same I which sees me.
The eye by which eye see is the same eye which sees me.
The I by which I see is the same I which sees me."

This also inspired the title of the painting. Eye used a similar repetitive text phrase idea in a previous painting called "Who Is You". The original inspiration for the repetitive text phrases came from Richard Prince's, joke paintings.