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Yoshitoshi Meets Astroboy1993 Oil on canvas 62.0" x 70.0" Private collection With this piece, I greatly increased the size of the canvas, making the painted objects much larger than their actual size. The background, as in Toys, is composed of two flat items, a woodcut print by Yoshitoshi from 1889 and an Astroboy comic book cover from the 1950's. I merged the two images to symbolize the influence that Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcuts had in inspiring the comic book art form. Against that flat two-dimensional graphic background, I arranged a number of Japanese robots and "transformer" toys that belonged to my son, Emil. I was attracted to their unusual shapes and great colors, and their odd, unusual shadow patterns. I tossed in other objects that seemed related to my main idea for the painting: change and transformation. As I was painting the small black robot at lower left, it seemed silly to put some number on his chest that was meaningless to me, so I put in the zip code for my home town, Hillsboro, Texas. The green robot in the center (is he going to be beheaded by the samurai?) has "McB" on his feet - the initial of my married name, McBurney. Since then, I tuck personal references into my work whenever I can. For the comic book title, I had my favorite waiter at our local sushi bar write in Japanese "change is constant" or "the only thing permanent is change". He told me that the writing he gave me says "change is eternal", but for all I know it could just as easily say "Bingo every Friday night!" |