Miseryland 2010

Dave Macdowell made Miseryland sometime in the 20th century with a striking attention to the face. I wonder what it was like to be him, wrestling with the psyche, its torments and pleasures? There's an interesting push and pull here. On the one hand, the guy looks like he's having a bad time. The rats don't help, but there's also a certain energy, even a kind of humor. It reminds me a little of Raymond Pettibon's drawings - that same sense of manic intensity, the same feeling that everything is about to fall apart, or maybe it already has. It's all so physical, you know? You can feel the artist's hand in every brushstroke, every line. And maybe that's the point, that painting is a way of working through things, of making sense of the chaos. But I think what strikes me most about this painting is its honesty. It's not trying to be anything it's not, it's just laying it all out there, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And in a world full of carefully curated images and polished surfaces, that's something pretty special.