Unhappy Face

Written on the back of a hotel notepad (this will be a recurring medium), several years ago. Probably around 2002. It was inspired by the artist Raymond Pettibon, who designed album covers and concert flyers for many early Southern California punk bands such as Black Flag. He designed the iconic "black bars" that was the band's logo and often found tattooed on many older fans of the band.

I had intended to paint a simple yellow smiley/dead face on a medium canvas with the text on the top or bottom. It was supposed to be a comment on the angst felt by free-spirited people entering their 30s and the pressures of adulthood becoming more real. Unlike the happy, laid-back positivism, the original meant to convey, mine was intended to show that happiness was unattainable through the current value system based on a consumer culture aimed toward economic and material bliss.

Several years later, older and with a family, I'm not so militant in my ideals. However, recent events of economic hardship and the protest movement, make the (never completed) painting more prescient as ever... if I had actually painted it.