Who Is You?
2008 - 22"x28"x13/8" Acrylic, charcoal, pencil, oil pastel, collage, on gallery wrapped canvas.
Finished with one coat brush on Liquitex Matte Varnish #5232
(Available - $350 USD)

January 2008

(Larger deer thinking outloud)
"You look familiar."
"Have I seen you before?"
"Yes, I have."
"Who are you?"

Small Reindeer:
"I am You."

Large deer:
"You are not me."
"You are you and I am me."

Small Reindeer:
"You is batman."

The F-train stops. The train doors open.
Conductor announces, "This is a Manhattan bound F-Train." "Next stop the bat cave."
Small reinder gets on a waves goodbye.

Large deer stands at train platform pondering outloud:
No matter where you go there you are.
No matter where you go there you are.
No matter where you go there you are.
No matter where you go, there you is!
You is Batman!

 

Background:
In my artist statement, I say that my paintings are a collage of random thoughts, feelings and inspiration all mixed together. This painting is a good example of how the randomness gets mixed together. Here is the convoluted thought process that occurred as the painting developed.

I started this painting by gluing newspaper and pencil shavings to the canvas and adding a few coats of gesso. It quickly evolved into another landscape painting with animals. It was a bit of a mess and I almost painted over it. The mountains had too much color, so I painted them black. I added the tunnel and train tracks for no specific reason, other than I though it created an odd contrast to the nature scene. The trees were made by removing portions of the green grass collage area and gluing them on the mountains. The large pine tree represents the Christmas tree that was cut down for Rockefeller Center.

I was looking through a Brooklyn Rail newspaper and found a phrase that I liked: "No Matter Where You Go, There You Are." It seemed like something the larger animal could be thinking or saying to the reindeer, so I glued it to his body.

I recently saw a Richard Prince exhibition at the Guggenheim, and I really liked his joke paintings where he used repetitive text phrases in his art. When I though about the phrase, I realized "you" could be interpreted different ways.

No matter where you1 go, there you1 are.
No matter where you1 go, there you2 are.
No matter where you2 go, there you1 are.
No matter where you2 go, there you2 is.
You is batman.

The reindeer originally had some scribbling on him, and it looked like the word "bat". That inspired the phrase "I am batman." The two phrases were then tied together.

The large deer is thinking out loud about the meaning of "you" and repeating it over and over in his head, and then comes to the self realization that the little reindeer's name is "You", and he is batman.

Once the idea of batman was introduced into the painting, the tunnel became the bat cave. They are waiting for the subway train to the bat cave.

The large dome behind the mountains was originally a lollipop tree in front of the mountains. It evolved into a dome with Gotham City inside it.

Yes, it's convoluted, but that was the thought process.

 

Here is a larger, detailed photo: