John Brosio

Okay, now we’re getting back to some more recent work. This is from about a year ago, maybe two, and measures 36 × 36 inches. It is a “sequel” to my other jerk painting only this one is a little more over the top (like most sequels, huh…). It VERY much echoes my very first tornado painting of note, “Indecision,” which I will post here as a facet. I thought it fun to revisit myself in a sense to see how I may have or have not matured.

This painting here is clearly more deliberate than the one from way back. I photographed the man with the rifle in the parking lot at LCAD (Laguna College of Art and Design) and then later added his dog. The rest is out of my head. I am very proud of them white/pink clouds back there for sure having had no reference other than memory. When I started in on them I was just too lazy to get up and look for some reference but it all worked out. The tornado is configured as something we rarely see photographed in that it is “tethered” to the sky at some distance from us while the big long “rope” of it extends out in our direction. This happens a lot in nature but we usually see it from the side in any visual documentation.

Incidentally, the “roping out” of a tornado can also be somewhat dangerous to chasers and such as it is pretty much the only time in the life of a tornado when the circulation on the ground reverses its direction.

Anyway, back to the painting: One thing I found difficult was the placement/ direction of that dog. Kind of like the beer bottle on the ground in my other “jerk” painting, that dog both marks and de-emphasizes what might be something of a diagrammatic arrangement I think.

I think.

I thought it important that his dog be doing “something else” here such that the feel of time in this piece might lean a teensy bit back toward something candid.