Abstract painting acrylic on canvas, commissioned in 2018

I created the Eeek! painting as part of a gallery show in 1999. Inspired by Batman is was a mashup of characters, reflection on the comicbooks, 1966 TV show - really a stream of consciousness with fragments of imagery and phrases from classic Batmania.

The first version was smaller 18" x 36" and went to one of my friends.

In 2007 had an opportunity for a long-term gallery show at an Intercontinental Hotel art gallery. I had just completed about 40 paintings so the timing was great. The gallery itself was a very large space, with a magnificent central entrance wall. Nothing like a big blank wall for inspiration. I thought it would make more of a statement to have a single large piece and came up with the idea to reimagine Eeek! with my largest painting to date.

Eeek! sold in 2010 to a California collector. They were restoring a mid-century modern home, the design of which was featured in Atomic Ranch magazine. Eeek! made the cover of that issue.

Since then I’ve done a few commissions of Eeek!, each one unique.

Rather than beginning with a fixed idea, I often approached painting in this period through searching, exploration, and a kind of automatic process. This piece grew that way, starting with a few colors or symbols and layering from there. I would respond to what surfaced, covering, revising, and letting accidents stay if they carried energy, until the image found a strange but instinctive balance. What I was after was not polish, but a sense of internal coherence that felt discovered rather than imposed.