Stoned Spectres was inspired by the time when I was a teenager and I would go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan every day after school. I would sit next to the temple of den door and start doing my homework down. The hall was a small section at the time devoted to the art that Michael Rockefeller brought back from Papua New Guinea only actually he didn't bring the work back because he was killed or eaten by the native asthma. This story fascinated me and decades later. I was thinking about it and dreaming about it and I decided to paint my dreams. The figures in the mixed media work are meant to be both stoic, superior, and snide. I was thinking about how the native Asmat of PNG used their art a spiritual bridge between the worlds of the living and their ancestors. In a book I read, called Savage Harvest, it is detailed how the Asmat Chieftans really became annoyed at Michael Rockefeller. He kept talking about how he was gonna buy this and buy that and buy all their work and the thing is is the art they created was really designed for spiritual and even religious reasons and so the way he was talking about the art as a commodity offended them. I used found objects like shells and feathers and small pieces of glass to complement and augment the sense of ceremonial and religious importance to the figures, but also a sense of ritual and tribalism. I also used various gels such as matte gel and interference paint to create a slight iridescence, and also a sense of luminosity or importance to the figures.

Artwork Size & Ink Base:

41 x62

Please add your full name below if you would also like to make this listing searchable by name:

Daniel Aaron Schwartz

Please add your IG Username if you would like Plogix to share this listing on social media:

@daniel.a.schwartz1