2022  •  16 x 20"  Show size

oil, oil stick, graphite, colored pencil, marker on paper

In this portrait I am exploring the many sides of John Lennon and the endless expressions of the many truths that he came to know. Lennon saw his songs as snapshots of what he was thinking and feeling at the moment of composition. He believed that the one quality his calling as an artist demanded of him was complete emotional and intellectual honesty. And from his earliest years, he had no interest in disguising what he had to say to bring it into conformity with what anyone else thought his ideas should be, or even with points of view he may have felt at one time himself. If he was true to the emotion that had given birth to the song, that was enough.