Good Ol' Barney

I rarely paint celebrities. Too often the focus becomes the subject of the painting rather than the painting. When I say the focus of a painting should be the painting, I don't necessarily mean technique, but in a sort of Clemente Greenberg way I mean its formal properties - you know, surface, support, paint, size, texture - all that sort of stuff. (Yea, I know, Greenberg would have hated this painting.)

Don Knotts was a master. For all his inanities, he was able to switch and pull off an emotional and melodramatic moment. John Candy could do this also. I, personally, have never seen Jim Carrey do it convincingly.

This oil on canvas is 20"x16" and painted in 2005.