Gorney, 18" x 24"
What is it with misshapen hands, ("Artist in Front of Blank Canvas", "Groom with Large Hand Weds Blond Woman in Colorful Church", "Serpico? Kenny Loggins?", "Smiling Man in Tophat with Handkerchief and Backwards Hand"), inappropriately placed heads ("Floating Head with Rose", "The E.R. Hump"), and most perplexing of all, eyes ("The Eye", "Large Black Cat with Yellow Eyes (Head Only)", "The Cross-eyed Jesus")?
I can understand how developing artistic talent may cause a higher-than-average percentage of distorted appendages, I appreciate the tradition of surrealism or just the plain old urge to be weird (inappropriately place heads), but I DO NOT UNDERSTAND why so many thrift store paintings are so focused on the human eyes or why so many artists feel the need to spotlight this one organ. Yes, yes, I know about "the eyes are the window to the soul" and all that crap, but does this painting really need a lone eyeball hovering between the tree branches to make any more of an impact? I mean, the colors are horrible, the subject matter is uninteresting, and the artist really has nothing to say, but he/she must have believed that the addition of a single eye would really "make" this painting! Who knows, maybe there's a whole series of Gorney paintings out there with a lone eyeball floating on top of houses, tennis courts, bowls of pistachio nuts, Ford Probes, etc. .....