Georgia & Luckies

Another update from the Japan series. I decided to remove the Japanese characters and zoom in on the can and cigarettes, cropping them in the process. This one is totally graphic. In fact, I'm painting this with the same insane precision used in Murakami's studio: flawless flat color built up with many layers of the same acrylic color, leaving no brush marks, no gradations, painting "within the lines" and exactly up to the line. It's as if the painting is an exact replica of the same done as vector art. The end result should appear as if it were produced by a machine.

Painting like this is kind of a break from the more painterly work I've got going, but I'm beginning to question if it's worth it. For one thing, I'm doing it on stretched canvas instead of canvas mounted on a rigid support, and the gesso ground is not as smooth as it should be to achieve true flatness. And I've cut corners in certain ways from the get-go, which all kind of negates the process itself. For another thing, this is Murakami's method, not mine, so it's not in my best interest to keep on with it unless I think of a way to improve on it or make it my own. Ultimately, these reasons make it hard to justify continuing with such an anal and time-consuming process of painting. I'll have to think of where I can go from here with this.