pop art

Mixed-media Pee Wee Herman painting.  Here I worked on up-cycled building material as my substrate.  I included things like vintage colorforms in the upper left and metal letters, screwed into the wood.

Lately I've been including pop culture references in my art.  It began when my good friend and former high school pal, Scott Martin, asked me to do a series of paintings for his bar, which is called Simon's Tavern. (The original owner was named Simon, in case you wondered.)  

A few months ago, I happened to make a funny art piece on glögg.  I sent Scott a photo of it, just for fun.  It was something he wanted to see more of.  He has always appreciated comedy, once studying at Chicago's famed Second City.  I can vouch for his status as class clown in high school. 

That first piece I did featured a parody lyric, "You might as well face it, you're addicted to glögg."  I had not planned to do any more.  It was a joke because I was drinking glögg with friends while I was painting it.  I was just kind of passing the time.

When Scott told me he wanted more paintings along this line, it got my creative juices flowing.  Glögg-ifying song lyrics was a blast.  I couldn't write them down fast enough.  Then trying to turn those ideas into paintings was another piece of a fun puzzle.  

How can I tie in some kind of visual, with a funny viking, that goes with the gag line?  They started out as parodies of lyrics, but eventually I moved into TV shows.  I'm working on pieces that are movie-themed as well.  I have an idea for a future piece that will merge sports and TV, with glögg of course!  Always with glögg!

I was going for a bit of a graffiti-style with this Johnny Cash inspired painting.

Thus my art has moved into comedic, pop-art, which I love.  I think I'm something of a closet comedian anyway.  This gives me a way to let that side of me out.  I aspire to be a Swedish Weird Al meets Andy Warhol. There's a combo for ya.

Incidentally, the Pee Wee piece is not part of the Simon's collection, while the Viking Named Sue piece is part of it.