DAVID HUMPHREY
Portrait, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 52 x 36 inches
My paintings are frequently depictions of depictions. I will
copy an amateur painting, for instance, the way a band might cover a song written
by someone else, or the way a singer renders an old chestnut. I try to get inside
the other person's point of view to stretch my own. Sometimes the pre-existing
image, like an eccentrically generic landscape, will provide a location for
one of my paintings. Sometimes a sad clown or beloved pet painting will provide
the protagonist. My handmade renditions, though, take a lot of liberties with
the originals. I will add characters or exaggerate and mutate elements. But
the work will evolve from contact with the original and will carry iconographic
elements, and sometimes feelings, into the finished state.
--David Humphrey