Hard Times

The Party's Over, it's time to call it a day.
They've burst your pretty balloon and taken the moon away.
Now you must wake up, all dreams must end.
Take off your make up, The Party's Over.
It's all over, my friend.

On the surface, an exhibition focusing on “Hard Times” may sound like a real buzz kill but I have tried to avoid that by taking my usual humorous and satirical approach to this subject. I think Laughter is the best medicine, and it may be the only one available right now. Admittedly, this approach is not always easy to do and some of the pieces in this show are barely funny or perhaps not at all, but as compensation, and for my own mental health I have included some hopeful and purely whimsical pieces as well. You can decide for yourself which ones they are.
When I begin a painting, I don’t usually set out to make it a part of a bigger theme. Normally I just let my imagination run wherever it wants in regards to subject matter. However, one is naturally affected by what’s going on in the world and when I looked at my recent work as a whole I noticed many of the pieces reflected the difficulties that we are facing these days and so came the theme of “Hard Times”.

I don’t know about your friends and family but to me it seems like a lot of us are being challenged on many different levels. The obvious external reasons have to do with the poor economy, the endless wars, the environmental crisis and a general sense that things are out of control and not going well. Many have lost trust and confidence that our Leaders have our interests in mind or can actually fix these problems. Even if our own lives on the surface are Ok, it’s hard not to be affected mentally by this big picture. That is assuming you are reasonably informed and have empathy for others. Some of the paintings in this show reflect more on these internal states of mind.
Of course any artistic creation is also about the artist as well. These images come from somewhere for some reason and like dreams they can show you something about yourself and how you process the world. I believe art is mostly about communication and sharing our experience as human beings on this planet. Hopefully it can make us understand that we are not so different or so alone.

I hope you enjoy the show, thanks for looking.
Mark Bryan