Portrait of Jon Mooneyham

Although Mooneyham has become a very good friend to me in the interim, I really hardly knew him at the time that I did this painting. Although I'd had a few conversations with him about music all I really knew of him was that he was the big weird guy who worked at the record store. It seemed for a while that he had a new hair style, hair color, and piercing every time that you went in. Eventually his hair became a consistent jet black mop, what my dad called an "electrified hair-do." It wasn't unusual for him to wear rosaries as necklaces, and he was very proud of his ring that looked like it had an eyeball set into it.

I was very into de Kooning at the time that I did this and all I knew was that I wanted to paint figures in sloppy strokes. This involves collage too. The record on it is an actual vinyl record. The record store had several signed album covers on the wall and this was suppose to refer to that. The scrawling across it says "Interior," a reference to Lux Interior of the Cramps, which was one of the autographs that hung on the wall. (However that may be, the record itself, I still remember, was a Paul Simon album that I'd bought from their dollar bin specifically for use in the painting.) Another bit of collage was a flier for an upcoming Husker Du show. It is beneath his one hand.

My interest in reflecting the punk scene in my paintings brought me around to this type of portraiture. It also secured me some exposure since the record store would often hang any painting that I would do of any of the local hipsters.

 

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