I painted this portrait as a publicity image for Stark Raving Theatre’s production of The Cold Comedy Concoction.  It was one of four paintings that I created for Stark for their 2004-2005 season, which also included Faust. Us., The Vespiary, and Kiss It!

These paintings were the beginnings of a direction that I didn’t actually follow until two years later.  In 2006, I started including background elements in my paintings. My first re-foray in this direction was this painting. The background elements are very subtle—very timid!  I certainly got over that with Swollen.