"Sin and Redemption" (20"x16" oils, 2004)
A lot of different artists are credited with inventing the "outlaw country" genre, but inarguably, it was Johnny Cash. Incredibly, it was well over fifty years ago when Johnny Cash's words were first laid down on vinyl: "I hear that train a comin', it's rollin' around the bend..."
I first connected with Johnny Cash when he released American Recordings in 1994. I'm not into country music, so it seemed an unlikely choice for me, but I better understood this connection when I read his autobiography, Cash, three years later. I felt a kinship with him on a spiritual level... he was a broken, rebellious man, but strived to do good, and he leaned on Jesus as his savior. And he loved his second wife June passionately until the day he died.
Johnny Cash had a remarkable, complex face with a formidable nose. If you look at the two sides of his face you can detect character traits in the asymmetry (something true of all of us). As you view him, the left shows the earthly, sinful side, and the right, the chaste, obedient aspect of his character.
When I painted it in November of 2004, it was intended as a tribute (Cash died in September of 2003). It was my first real work using oils, and the first portrait I ever painted.
I remember well working on it at around 3:00 am during an all-night painting bender (something I still do from time to time). Tired to the point of exhaustion, I had been singing along to one of Cash's last CDs... and calling on him to visit me -- to breathe life into this work -- as I labored on the canvas. Little did I know... his eyes came suddenly -- and startlingly -- to life with a few strokes of the brush. The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up as I sensed his presence. I guess I wasn't too well prepared for his arrival.
(This has only happened once again since that time, while painting "Chef Theo", another post-mortem portrait.)
This painting is still one of my favorites.
"Sin and Redemption" 20"x16" Oils, available for $1490.
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