The Valkyries 1987

Boris Vallejo made this painting of The Valkyries in oil paints, and it really throws me back to my younger days! Look at the bodies on those women, the way they reflect the light; I can really feel the sweat and the heat of the battle. I can imagine Vallejo there in his studio, building up layer upon layer of thin paint, all to catch the light just so. He probably was working from photographs, trying to get it just right, to create a hyper-realistic representation of what he thought was beautiful. And in some ways, that’s what I’m trying to do, too, but to embrace the mess of it, and not to smooth it all out! The horses are just as beautiful, with flames coming out of their nostrils. It's easy to forget that painting and drawing animals is so hard. But what I think he’s really doing is talking to all the artists who came before him, and that’s what all artists are doing, really.