I have been doing smaller paintings as of late. This is both to make more work and to have a greater opportunity to make money with more sales. No artist can really be oblivious to the nature of what they do. We make things that have no direct function to the world, or we are not bakers, carpenters or city planners. Enough of that. What is this? Its a series of small works in which I am using humor with an iconic character of popular culture, Darth Vader. One can make the case that there are no real original stories or characters just the constant flux, flow and transformation of previous ideas that stretch back to the beginning of civilization. All well and good. Right now I am using a Vader head mask and combining it, juxtaposing, contrasting, or using incongruous arrangements. This character is very well known to most people in the United States. I cannot say for the rest of the world. Its a figure of the Fallen Knight, or warrior, or soldier. A character that you can find in practically all cultures in the world. Samurai, Medieval knights, Cowboys culture, you name it. The basis is not the fall but the redemption of the person that matters. Vader shares that history. But today the character is also a property, a character that has been used to sell breakfast cereal, action figures, cookie jars, T-shirts, you name it. What I wanted to do is take this well known character, or to use the corporate entertainment industry description, this property, and spin it into another direction. The basis is that I like painting shiny surfaces and clothes. Its a great challenge and looks cool. The second part is that by putting this masculine figures head on a woman's body the character becomes something else. it becomes less about the reality of it symbolic meaning and more about its universal appeal AND the silly nature of our narratives, mythos. This character has embraced the darker aspects of the human heart and mind. Yet in the movies he really is not that brutal of a character. One can not really compare Vader to say the brutality of the Nazi's and the SS. (Yes, the Death Star destroyed a planet and killed billions but that was not Vader's order). Taking the head of Vader and placing it on a female figure pokes fun at the icon, saying that this is just a fiction created by a group of people for entertainment value in a space movie. It stretches the character into absurd, surreal or bizarre arrangements. Changing the arrangement makes one think differently of the symbolism of the character or with that new arrangement one can reaffirm the symbolic significance behind the artifice of Vader.