Good Lord 2016

James Jean created ‘Good Lord,’ and it is a real trip. The palette is, well, heavenly—a deep blue sky is punctuated with bursts of peach and coral blossoms. The old guy looks like he's seen some things. I can imagine Jean in his studio, wrestling with this composition, layering those wispy clouds over the graphic floral patterns, trying to balance the ethereal with the grounded. Those meteor showers give it a cosmic vibe that reminds me of some of the psychedelic surrealists. But then, the lettering... It’s like he’s channeling Alphonse Mucha, playing with Art Nouveau curves. Each gesture must have been so deliberate! It's a wild combination, a push and pull between different worlds that somehow makes sense, right? The old masters probably would have hated it; which is why, for a contemporary painter, it’s the kind of thing that might just open up new possibilities!