BOLD
Embracing The Inner Child
An Exhibition of New Works Celebrating the Bold Inner Child
The Influence of Paris
When I first entered the art world I had just returned from spending time living as a young bohemian in streets in Paris with other artists, performance artists, and performers. In Paris art and performance are deeply intertwined. Because I had a background in performance art, when I first started painting I wasn't taken seriously and my work was called "childlike". Ironically, my work was also being compared to the works of the artists of Paris, especially Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, and Matisse. Interesting because, in a addition to being painters, I also consider them performance artists, especially Picasso! And even though Lautrec actually came from a prominent family with a bloodline of French nobility, those close to Lautrec knew he was also notorious like Picasso for embracing his inner child as a performer:
Picasso embracing his inner child performing as a clown
Toulouse-Lautrec also
embracing his inner child as a performance artist
So who could blame me for having been influenced by these artists from my time as a performance artist in Paris? Besides, even in terms of painting, what artist could possibly live in Paris and not be influenced by the work of Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso and Matisse? Lautrec, Picasso, and Matisse were everywhere in Paris! They were in all the Paris cafés, the streets, plastered on advertisements, on the metro, in the shops, and of course in the museums in Paris... So if my work looked like it was influenced by theirs, it's because it absolutely was! Lautrec, Picasso, and Matisse definitely all influenced my first understanding of great art, and I owe them all a great deal for the impact they had. They are my heroes, mentors, and teachers, albeit via osmosis.