‘Fare’ Grounds

‘Fare’ Grounds

Oil on Linen

‘Fare’ Grounds is a narrative painting that is full of symbolism and analogy.  As the ‘Fare’ in the title suggests, this painting explores how we go through life. 

It is primarily a direct and glazed painting. The content is composed of rescaled and repositioned studies that were directly observed from carnivals onto an uphill landscape to create a human and spiritual narrative.  

The balloon is symbolic throughout.  The dominant clown figure breathes all that is good into the balloon for the awaiting child.  The symbolic figure in the foreground with the painted face is barely holding onto the thin thread that’s attached to the partially visible balloon that is already mostly off the picture plane. Another that’s on-the-edge of freedom is placed under the canopy of the game booth where humans chance for the win.  

Rides are analogies for turbulence, repetition, exploration and rising above.