Jesus – High End Low Brow Pop Art

Hopeless Cases and Good Graces

Dick Van der Wurst on July 1, 2020

So I got this commission. Not just for a painting but for a custom niche wired with electricity and anything else I could convince them was necessary. I could have worked some plumbing into it perhaps but no, just the tiles and electricity.

They were interested in a slightly irreverent religious painting of their favorite saint, St. Jude. He needed to be holding their favorite tequila and a High Life, offering them to the viewer as if he recognized YOU as a lost cause in need of a beer and a shot.

I did some research on the worship (adoration is thinly veiled idolatry, let’s not kid ourselves) of St. Jude in Mexico. There is a church in Mexico City that features the image of Jude over a field of blue and white tile, so I figured the niche could have some tile of its own. Many tiles were considered. The sugar skulls motif can be overdone and a bit obvious for applications such as this, but damn it if these didn’t have just the right about of high contrast patterning without being too busy.

Not only did I mock up how the assembled painting look on the tile, I designed the niche to fit the tile without the need for cutting. I also diagrammed the wiring for it to be lit from above and a socket to power the flicker flame light bulb on Jude’s head.

I spent some time reading about St. Jude and how in Mexico he isn’t just associated with lost causes, but because he a lesser saint often confused with Judas, he is said to be a better advocate for juvenile delinquents and criminals who need a saint who will pray extra hard on their behalf. All of this made me think that St. Jude might have a little attitude, with wry smirk and raising an eyebrow as if he knows what a fuck you can be. The face I’m painting a mixture of random internet images, Danny Trejo, Russel Brand and Jesus. In fact the robes and hair are just a painting of Jesus. I turned the regal red robes green, superimposed a rich paisley pattern on the green and added a Jesus medal on a *bling*bling* gold rope chain.

All told I think I photoshopped together about 20 different elements to create the collaged comp you see here. Two hands, shot glass, the logo on the shot glass, the beer, the body with the left arm rotated a bit, the medal covering up the original’s sacred heart, the gold rope chain, Danny Trejo’s face with a less prominent brow, some other guy’s eyes (all Christian saints have to have blue eyes) and parts of Russel Brand’s beard…as well as the halo, bulb, bird, fire and rays. And let’s not forget the parting clouds. It’s a very complicate piece that highlights so much of what I learned as a good Catholic School boy.

As they say, “Progress Over Perfection.” But I hate it when they say that even if it’s true.

So all I really have left to do is the top of the bottle and the face and there is always another pass necessary to get all the details just so. I just spent an hour touching up the Jesus medal a little bit. After all that I’ll just need to put it together.

The thought of painting that face has me shook. I’m a little worried about getting the expression just right. I guess faces with character and lines and shadows are easier than smooth soft faces. If so, then Danny Trejo’s modified mug should be a breeze.

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photoshop collage comp for future painting titled Holy Guacamole: Delayed Gratification

Holy Guacamole (Delayed Gratification): Revisited and Improved

Dick Van der Wurst on August 26, 2019

So I’ve decided to bring along some old and new food and booze pieces to Pancakes and Booze shows this fall in Austin, San Antonio and Houston. This one needs to be redone though.

Delayed Gratification taco time finished painting.

Delayed Gratification: Taco Time piece was done before I put much thought into layering levels. Also, while people were enjoying the familiar old praying men, they weren’t digging the clock so much. So I cut off the clock and made the men and their meal separated and ready for more to be added.

So then I asked myself, “Self, what could I add that will help make the piece more relatable”

I wanted something to better connect with viewers and make it generally a better piece. I contemplated on just what it could be the men are praying for. Ideas of abuelas and pin up waitresses were considered. But then keeping with the prayer theme, why not add a Mary in their shared “thought could” offering to theme he only thing that’s missing on their tacos? The best of all condiments and something that is becoming more and more expensive. Avocado! Something worthy of prayer. And who better to ask than Mary?

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/13/entertainment/scooby-doo-50th-anniversary-history-trnd/index.html?no-st=1568423507

Virgin Butterworth: Revealing the Madonna Archetypes All Around Us

Dick Van der Wurst on August 10, 2019

Making this for Pancakes and Booze shows this fall in Austin, San Antonio, and Houston.

Had a short list of virgins I wanted to do anyway. This was one of them. The showed vaulted this vague nugget of a concept to the front of the line.

So I found a picture of an old bottle of Mrs. Butterworth, changed her pose, adjusted the label and started surrounding her with religious tropes in the form of breakfast related imagery. The only think I had in mind was the bottle. Chance with Google image searches and random associations come together to create this comp that I now need to paint.

Update: above you see the latest version. Here is the earlier one. Luckily I realized that Mrs. Butterworth wasn’t virginal enough. I didn’t want to make her look like a Mary, but she did need to look more saintly than this:

Blessed Mother of Breakfast: Photoshop collage comp

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All the Credit, None of the Blame: Relativist Pop Art painting by Moe Profane

All of the Credit, None of the Blame: Authentic Relativism

Dick Van der Wurst on September 26, 2013

2013 • 60″ x 33″
acrylic, spray paint on used fence pickets

When tragedy happens, why do we find so many people thanking God that it wasn’t any worse? All of the credit – none of the blame? Good work if you can get it.

I’m not questioning God’s will, his power or even his existence with this piece. I’m questioning the egotistical belief that we have a gift giving invisible sky daddy and the shithead externalization of all blame towards the boogeymen from which He protects us. I may be comforting to a child to put a face on all the scary things that we can’t understand or control, but how can any adult settle for what is little different from the ignorant imaginings of scared cavemen explaining away the thunder.

We should take credit when you can, accept the blame when you must and get used to the fact that the universe doesn’t give a fuck about you.

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White Jesus and Waffl Fryz: Relativist Pop Art painting by Moe Profane

White Jeezus and Waffl Fryz: The Ultimate Combination

Dick Van der Wurst on September 25, 2013

2013 • 55″ x 33″
acrylic, spray paint on used fence pickets

I have long had issues with to Chick-fil-a. First because in the early days, it was only available in malls, and fuck going to malls. Then I found out that they were not open on Sunday. Sunday is just an arbitrarily chosen day that is different than the day the Jews observed. Why even bother? Fuck them. They would have me not able to buy chicken on Sunday exactly as I can’t buy liquor. Only later did all that anti-gay legislation stuff come out. That was just the icing on the cake and not even the subject of this piece specifically.

Because I associate such irrational fundamentalism with the egocentric worship of a mythical, blonde haired, blue eyed, virgin born god-man from the middle east, I chose to show the Chick-fil-a mascot cow proselytizing this naive belief, similar to the done-to-death ads with childlike cow writing used to promote eating more chicken. And of course what do they do while selling us their version of Christianity? They offer waffle fries on the side.

What would White Jesus eat?

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Our Lady of the Lawn (1): Relativist Pop Art Painting by Moe Profane

Our Lady of the Lawn (3): Revisited Obsession

Dick Van der Wurst on September 24, 2013

2016 • 26″ x 20″
acrylic, spray paint, used fence pickets

Bathtub Mary, also known as Mary on the half shell is a simulated lawn grotto framing a small statue of the Virgin Mary and less often, other Roman Catholic figures.

Wikipedia says:

While often constructed by upending an old bathtub and burying one end, similar designs have been factory produced.

Bathtub Madonnas are also a common sight in north-central Kentucky and southern Indiana [where I spent a vast majority of my years on earth]…an area that has historically been predominately Catholic. A drive down country roads…will provide ample sightings of these small shrines.

This is a theme that is very rich for me. Not only as a recovering Catholic but because of its association with the archetypal “virgin.” Jung’s ideas on the subject helped with the recognition of my propensity to project. The discovery and recognition of the negative effects this subconscious power can have was a big part in causing me to want to confront the power of Symbols in my work and in my life.

Below you can see older, less successful attempts to do this idea justice as I was finding my visual voice. Lady (1) was a during a time when I thought my use of materials could support my half assed illustration style. It wasn’t until later that I’d be better suited to mixing realistic elements with (better) illustration (see: Lesser of Two Evils).

Lady (2) was even worse for different reasons. I was determined to include text in the pieces as a more prominent element. Mary in a bathtub screams for a vertical support. I think I may have tried this horizontal as a challenge.

I failed.

The thing sucks for too many other reasons to list but it did get me closer to the success you saw above. This is why you take a step back after you finish a piece and evaluate your success and failures. Most importantly watch and listen to how people react to things. If you believe in the basic idea, you can eventually make your way to a piece that is worthy of the brilliant concept behind it.

Lady of the Lawn (2): Relativist Pop Art Painting by Moe Profane — Our Lady of the Lawn (2): 33″ x 40″ 2013

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Diminished Castration of a Slave: Relativist Pop Art Painting by Moe Profane

Diminished Castration of a Slave: Fascinating Metaphor for Circumcision

Dick Van der Wurst on October 18, 2012

2012 • 48″ x 18″
acrylic, spray paint on recycled fence pickets

From dear ol’ Wikipedia

Circumcision is arguably the world’s oldest planned surgical procedure, hypothesized to be over 15,000 years old, well pre-dating recorded history. There is no firm consensus as to how it came to be practiced worldwide. Peter Charles Remondino suggested that it began as a diminishment of full castration of a captured enemy: castration certainly would have been fatal, while some form of circumcision would permanently mark the defeated, yet leave him alive to serve as a slave.

So we see, the slave mentality of blindly mutilating your son’s sex organ because of some ancient religious dogma, is indeed, still, the diminished castration or marking of a slave.

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Holy Virgin - Harlot-Priestess of Ishtar: Relativist Pop Art Painting by Moe Profane

Holy Virgin – Harlot Priestess of Istar: A Myth’s Weird Origins

Dick Van der Wurst on July 7, 2012

2012 • 36″ x 36″
acrylic, spray paint, silk on panel

This is a commissioned piece painted for a collector who enjoyed paisley silks and the casting of Jungian projections of witch and virgin upon a woman at different times for the same reasons. She was looking for an ironic virgin. I think the source of virgin birth myths is itself ironic:

Holy Virgin was the title of harlot-priestesses of Ishtar (and) Asherah. The title didn’t mean physical virginity; it meant simply “unmarried.” The function of such ‘holy virgins’ was to dispense the Mother’s grace through sexual worship; to heal; to prophesy; to perform sacred dances; to wail for the dead; and to become Brides of God. The Hebrews called the children of these priestesses bathur, which meant literally “virgin-born” as in those children who were born of the holy harlot-priestesses of the temple. The Hellenic world had no equivalent to the bizarre rituals of Ishtar, and mistranslated and misunderstood the literal Hebrew’s bathur as parthenioi, also “virgin-born” but in the sense of physical, not spiritual, virginity.

She provided the paisley silk which ties in with Persian and Zoroastrian motifs as well. My collector sees a virgin she can relate to in this piece while I see a busted myth.

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Harbingers Series: A Special Gift for the Angel Worshippers

Dick Van der Wurst on May 19, 2012

No matter what the subject there lies a very fine line between archetype and cliché. This is never more true, and that line any thinner than when dealing with angels. Perhaps the very idea of angels is cliché and childish, leaving very little room, if any, to represent them in any way that isn’t cute, quaint, folksy and completely void of any conceptual value. Yet artists still choose to tackle the subject, not so much to bring anything new to the discussion, because there is very little left to be said about such a played out subject, but to ensure sales to right leaning McMansion dwellers. These self described “spiritual” who like the idea of owning original art and slumming with artists are limited in that their Protestant upbringings prevent them from considering anything as a blunt as hanging a dead white guy on a crucifix in their house, but not filling every empty spot in their house with the ridiculous little cherub chotchkies.

Even if one is being ironic or satirical, it is next to impossible to include an angel as the primary subject matter of a piece and not appear as if you were settling on the obvious. Making fun of angels is almost as played as revering them, though I have seen more successful attempts at this that show an angel in an unexpected context.

The popularity of angels and their role as archetypes in the human psyche isn’t as relevant to me as the fact that they ARE archetypes. I have long sought to expose personal and cultural archetypes (such as angels) as arbitrary worn out symbols whose only importance lies in their long history and deep penetration into our collective psyche. The fact that nearly every civilization that can trace itself back to the earliest stages of history in the fertile crescent have had versions of angels does not convince me of their existence, but rather reinforces the idea that they are but a common comforting link between what we know and those things we may never understand.

In the bible angels are described as male except in the rarest of instances. Medieval angels were all masculine warrior types yet today we are presented most often with babies, children or beautiful winged women in flowing robes. Which is funny because these images of God’s minions are founded in paganism:

“But the concept of angels having wings is of pagan origin, the belief that angels have wings is either folklore, myth, fable, legend, fantasy (imaginary psychological constructs), delusion (wishful thinking) or is merely a wistful, human-inspired tradition.”

So the trick is how to address this subject without falling into common clichés – even if all I am interested in is making fun of it. Maybe it isn’t even the angels that I am interested in. Perhaps I’m more interested in the lengths I’ve seen people go to in order to represent angels, or any other overused subject matter, in a more evocative way…shadowy figures with vague one word titles like “Watcher”. People have a propensity to identify a figure to identify with in even the most abstract images. Even the most elemental line or blob can turn into a shadowy figure that is either acting upon all of the other formal elements in a piece or having all of them action upon them. These ghostly characters often resemble the ghostly images of our subconscious, entities that have often been seen as spirits, apparitions and angels, so it would be natural to identify them as such in atmospheric, swirling, expressionistic compositions?

My use of “Harbingers” adds a tone of foreboding while still relying on an intriguing term that cleverly leaves room for interpretation by the viewer as to what the role of this angel figure might be, allowing them to create content where there is none…just like the hacks do!

Why naked fat guys? Because it isn’t any more or less ridiculous than attractive women in white clinging windblown gowns. Look at these earlier concepts.

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Brother Ass in a Hairshirt: Relativist Pop Art Painting by Moe Profane

Brother Ass in a Hairshirt: A Self Deprivation Sensation

Dick Van der Wurst on March 16, 2012

2011 • 48″ x 18″
acrylic, spray paint, fabric on panel

Here I explore the notion of spending this one life, denying your very nature and hating the very biology the very biology that makes us human. It highlights the approach St. Francis took to earthly pleasures:

St. Francis called the body ‘brother ass’. He kept this brother ass under perfect discipline and control. Sometimes he kept this brother ass without food and water and denied it some special food that it liked very much.

So why should one festoon their “brother ass” in a hairshirt?

A cilice was originally a garment or undergarment made of coarse cloth or animal hair (a hairshirt) worn close to the skin. It was used in some religious traditions to induce discomfort or pain as a sign of repentance and atonement.

The sole purpose of this self deprivation and torture was to fight one’s true humanity…that as any other organism with natural and purposeful instincts. I can only see it as unhealthy and sadly ridiculous for people to willingly participate into such misery.

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