Number 3 in what I hope to be a life-time series, Great Collaborations lll is another one of my fantasy, fan art pieces that envisions what might happen if two artists got together and collaborated on one project. Across space and time, dead or alive, no matter what the medium.
This one focuses on Andy Warhol. Sure Andy brought the lowly Campbells soup can to pop art royalty with his paintings and screen prints, and his style and creative antics of Studio 54 days populate the internet with photos of his crazy-hair days with people like Jean-Michel Basquiat (did you know his birthday was even celebrated at Studio 54 on August 6, 1979?) but Warhol's early self-portrait (1964) has almost haunted me over the years. His confidence, his stature in the portrait, even the way the screen print's mis-registration shown at his eye and collar seem to say "Yeah, it's off, what of it? That's art."
So, on too the "collaboration" part - here I paired influence of Mark Rothco's "White over Red"(1957) which I inverted thinking that he might subtly be paying homage to the lowly soup can (which is red over white) that Andy hoisted so powerfully to star status. As in past works, I love the difference in Rothko's live edge blending brush strokes VS the hard, controlled edge of the screen printing in Warhol's portrait.
I hope you enjoy. On to the next one.