attitudes of men these days (2024)

These paintings are figurative abstractions of how I perceive some men these days. I used bird images to characterize some men in our Western culture. Men's attitudes are indeed shaped by contemporary societal values as well as traditional norms.

I sense that some men are still displaying emotional suppression and that anger and aggression are taken as acceptable. However, many men regulate and consider their own and others' feelings.

Vulture men consume, devour, and demean others. Budgie men talk a lot and rarely show up. Rooster men show off with self-centered importance. These men are dressed in suits, but their attitudes are harmful, hurting, and simply unneeded.

Stories of Heavenly F.

I comment in the 4 large paintings on falls within the context of our current time. The paintings address themes of influential isms of our times. I view after-effects of falls as liberating and enlightening and not petrified and shameful. To fall is human. I have experienced that failures bring forth abilities to withstand inevitable shadowy decay and gloomy destruction in one’s life. Falls are appeals and challenges to live one’s life. However, what one does not confront within oneself, fate arranges that to be met in one’s outer life.

A Garden of Infants

I painted babies from my experiences of obstetric care over 2 decades. Observing a newborn infant as it breathes air for the first time felt like a kiss from the divine. Holding to hand it for the mother’s very first embrace was another birth in itself. The pain of confinement was forgotten as the immediacy of life suddenly overwhelmed. A new abandon had commenced.

The simple palette for the paintings is a deliberate choice to contrast implied racism in our contemporary times. Privilege, power, and entitlements are still based on racial prejudice, even very present in the medical communities of our times. My paintings comment on this bias in calculated ways.

Hollow stuffed men

In my paintings I examine men in parallel. It’s well known, men have too many challenges these days. Most men don’t talk very well. Words don’t come easily for us. Despite all this, we can be close and near. The men in my life are not far. Next to each other when we do things. And when we struggle to action, we are good at putting things off. Men procrastinate best when we don’t have deadlines.

My fantasy for postmodern men is that we can gather to listen intently and share wisdom that samba in our bones. As men we can be angry but not violent, sexual without being coercive and wild, and vital and passionate in our love. We can be willing, courageous, and committed to our values and in relationships. These paintings are my reflections of men in parallel, perceived as hollow, but stuffed with intensity for connections, maleness, and care.

Eating my own Shadow

With paintings, I find portals to create a language of colour and forms about the content of a personal dream. The images are physical forms of human and animal, but done with accident and chance. I shy away from the illustrative, but hold on to irrational mark makings. The painted images are imaginary and invite curiosity. The moods of the paintings are melancholic and eery. The images are dualities and not merely emotions painted out as abstractions. The paintings as a gestalt are a deeply subjective perspective of the dream experience. No logical answers are given to answer what the dream means. Questions remain.

The vaguely palpable bodies wish to speak, almost touch, if at all.

attitudes of men these days (2024)