Padraig James Smalley

This piece started when I found a photo on facebook of some kid from the Main Line passed out at a party with a Sharpied face. I wanted to do a painting of what he was dreaming. I made several small paintings over the printouts of his Facebook page. As it turns out, this kid had recently died, drunk on the train tracks. Real life hit Art with a pretty loud smack at that point. I made a digital collage with my face stitched over his, to put myself in his shoes. This made things more interesting, a little stranger. A Frankenstein of psychologies. The ideas worked themselves out through creating additional studies. To make is to think. The following images are presented in somewhat chronological order. 

Cradle and Crucible: The Enduring Legacy of The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

Photos by M. Ruben

I made a painting of my girlfriends' heels in preparation for a big picture called Young Love. Same idea as rehearsing before a concert. J-U-I-C-Y-B-R-U-S-H-S-T-R-O-K-E-S

Naturally, we use blogs for tips on cheap dating. EBT don't buy City Wide Specials!

Dancer 20x16" (plus frame size)
Oil & Archival Pigment on Canvas. 2011.
Cyberstalk what up! This image was sourced from a stranger's Facebook photo, and was used without knowledge or consent. The sections that are in color or look "realistic" were painted by hand. The tiny pixel looking things are also strangers' images which were siphoned from the web and printed onto canvas using K3 Utlrachrome Archival Pigments. This digital collage basically serves as a contemporary grisaille. I uploaded the final painting back onto Facebook upon completion, and tagged the subject, which resulted in some interesting comments (link coming soon). She loved the image and the spotlight.

. High Res Image Coming Soon.