I was listening to Terry Gross’ Fresh Air interview that she did in 2003 with Maurice Sendak, author of a trilogy that includes Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen and Outside, Over There. I was struck by his description of the monsters actually being inspired by memories of his older family members, who would come to dinner at his home in Brooklyn and with their hairy noses and moles and big ears would bore him to death at the dinner table with their meaningless dribble and hungry eyes waiting for his mom’s outrageously slow cooked food.
This juxtaposition between loving human connection and fearsome beasts seemed to capture the strange sense that Sendak’s characters don’t really fall easily into any one black or white space in our minds, but rather a blur across that spectrum of love and hate.
This morning I came across the paintings of Austin Power on the Behance Network. Specifically, his new series, titled “21 Portraits of People I Miss“. There’s a longing and sadness to his work that’s obvious, but also a serious and controlled discipline in these seemingly unfinished works, and a use of colors that really strike a chord with me as entirely contemporary and modern. Wonderful work and even more wonderful because they’re watercolors.
His show is opening tomorrow at Satsko, 245 Eldridge St., New York, NY 10002. 6-9pm.
View a selection of his work from this particular show.
View his portfolio online.
