Larry Madrigal
 

Hi,

I'm not sure that this belongs in 'Art Museum' but I reckon the work rocks huge in terms of portraying the inglorious every day as completely glorious on its own terms so I'm sharing:

https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles...paign=intemail

Hi Sarah-Jane, These are arresting. Hyper-realistic. Not surreal, exactly. A liberated Edward Hopper vision. What I like best is that there is so much else besides the central image that affects how I ultimately see it. The eyes, when he shows them, speak volumes. My favorite: Driver.

The article is excellent, too. He describes his work well. I loved that he used the word “saturated” to describe his depictions of the quotidian. What we call “quotidian “ is teeming with insight if we can capture it in just the right light. He does.

Yes, thank you. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be Dirty Mirror. The way your eyes end up on the little kid's smiling face, which is ultimately just a small part of the overall real estate of the picture, is delightful.

Oh, I'm glad other people here like these.

I love that, for me, the focus is never on the person that's foregrounded - like in the sex one it's the child in the background who is about to walk it that's foregrounded, despite the fact that the passion is portrayed as messy enough to be real - and the sleeping child is foregrounded in others. The painter/the narrator is 'in' the pieces, but they aren't, in my reading, about them, but about the family, about chaos, about love.

In the driving one, I love that we realise that the stressed driver is trying to see in three places at once, including the checking on their kid in the backseat.

I also (and will always) adore any painting that has the very real picture of 'is my child playing with the ironing cord' and cheesy corn snacks in them. Oh, and the fridge as a character. It reassures me that humanity isn't all art galleries and tweakments.

Sarah-Jane

Yes, all those background things work their way forward. In the sex one I liked the naked Barbie doll on the floor under the couch with her arms in a similar position as the woman and the picture on the wall of the family riding a rollercoaster, arms up.

They are great. Now I'm wondering which one I would hang in my house and what would I say about it when visitors asked... Hmm...