Buddha on His Banjo

This is a sketch for a painting I'm doing for my uncle. As the title of this post explains, it's Buddha on his banjo. Kind of random yes, but not without reason. Back in college (I just wanted to make myself sound really old there) I did a painting called "God Practicing his Guitar." My uncle liked the piece and the idea behind it so he commissioned me to do two more--the Buddha one and also Mohammed playing a mandolin (which I'll pose for, not because I think I'm all that and a bagga chips, but because I'm Middle Eastern-looking as shit. Don't kill me terrorists!). I've taken my sweet, succulent time getting around to them but I'm finally getting 'em on. Yay family paintings! Family Matters. Bob Saget.

Zombie Portraits

Sooo basically I wanna paint people I know as zombies, which I'm excited for on a number of levels. First of all, turning people I know into zombies is awesome. Second, I get to have fun destroying anatomy and painting blood and deformity and mutilation and so on. Third, painting zombie portraits seems like a really good fit for where I'm going with my painting technically--I want to work up layers of paint and focus on texture in a figurative context, kind of like how I did with my meat paintings. The physical qualities of a zombie, with layers of rotting, peeling flesh and gross deathly colors just seems so appropriate to this direction. Ideally I'd like people to feel nauseous when they view these paintings. Maybe I'll throw rotting meat juice on them... I'm very excited for these pieces. Here's some progress shots so far for "Subject 001: C. Kovacs":

Texture, glorious texture!

The Laboratory

Oh crap, I'm in a Zombie dance party

Continuing with the theme of "zombifying" photos, here is a sketch in the spirit of Dusk Til Dawn. You know the one scene where the main characters are hanging out in that crazy biker club and everything's cool and then BAM! Errbody's a vampire! I imagine the dude in this sketch to have been dancing with these girls believing they were, you know, regular broads only to suddenly realize he's in a damned zombie dance club. Why didn't he realize earlier? Maybe it was too dark to tell. Maybe he was on a lot of drugs. Either way, he's f'd.

Holy Shit...

I just got a sweet idea. More to come soon...

Sexy Zombies

You know what, while I'm at it here's a couple more zombie things. These are my sexy zombies.

And there's more where these came from.

Two Grapps and Zomb

I'm happy to say that I've finished all the work for my show in Coral Gables, FL, which occurs on the fifth day of the eleventh month of the Gregorian 2,010th year. I am relieved fo sho, although I'm not 100% sure if the work has arrived safely. I'm just gonna assume that it did. God I hope it did.

The two paintings I've posted here are for that show. I feel I should explain what they signify, but meh. I'm tired of the whole fighters thing. If anyone would like to know tell me, I'll happily tell you, but I don't feel like explaining it now. What I WILL explain is the sketch you see. Now that is something I'm excited for.

I've recently found myself captivated with the macabre and, specifically, all things zombie. Actually, I've been into the whole zombie thing for a while. I sleep with a katana by my bed. I have a machete in my studio. Apparently I would last for 1+ years in a zombie apocalypse according to a completely reliable Facebook quiz. I know there's a lot more I need to know and own in order to be prepared, but I'm down with the whole dealio. So now I want to bring the zombie thing into my art, and one way I want to do that is make fairly large paintings of party scenes wherein the partygoers have been replaced with zombies and yet-to-be-zombies. It will be fun to create a new narrative based on what I stumble across in these party pictures. This will probably be the next painting I do, and I hope to stay interested enough to do more of them.

Back...From the Future

Well not really,

But back I am. Back from Iowa, livin in Cincinnati, in my parents' basement, playing video games all day, as a 30 year old. I've been busy beyond belief since returning in June, all art stuff, all good things but man it's been a lot. I'm close to having my first significant rest after this Wednesday (10/13/10), when I will have (hopefully) all my work finished for my upcoming first ever one-dude show in Coral Gables, F-L-A. This occurs Nov. 5th and if you happen to be in Coral Gables area you should swing by and give me a high five. The show is being put on by my representin whatwhat gallery RDZ Fine Art, who have been amazingly accommodating since I've been there. So anyways I'm feeling proud enough of my newest work to post it so that's what I shall be doing later this week.

Oh and yeah I changed the blog name from "zMeat" to "The Slammerr." Why slammer with two "r's?" Because some turd took "The Slammer" with one "r" to ramble on about political shit. You know, typical boring "this is my opinion about nothing and you really don't care" blog stuff. Yeah I'm a little bitter, but perhaps I may come to appreciate that second "r" and, who knows, maybe some day I'll learn to love it. I picked "The Slammer" because that's what I've decided to name my studio, which is an indication of how tethered to it I've felt but it's for all good things. There's also a big black dude who has been desperately trying to give it to me up the butt since I've been here, too.

Alright so thanks for reading this. Hopefully I didn't just write this to myself. Let's go over the key points of this entry:

•Back from Iowa, parents' basement livin in Cincinnati
•Art show in Nov.
•Blog name change
•Black dude trying to rape me

Here enjoy this:

>Little Justin<