From 2020 Expo with Pere Llobera at Esther Monterol in Barcelona

 

1990

These were the first paintings I did when I moved into my live work studio in Barcelona in 1990. These are the only fotos I have of them. They are all approximately 230 x 170 cm. Middle painting of Mortadelo Spanish kid comic icon, and on the right, Frit Ravich Boy, a Catalan / Spanish potato chip brand. 

 

Older work and don't have a good photo of either of these 2.

 

Bunnies Studio

210 × 180 cm, mixed media on linen. Metallic silver ground.

Popeye

Two untitled paintings. Popeye jetting around.

235 × 175cm and 220 × 180 cm mixed media on linen.

Older Stuff

 

Popeye Laverda Mirage x 2, studio. 2023
 

I Forgot Abner

Daisy Mae and Li’l Abner

From Wally Wood's Li’l Abner 

200 × 170 cm, 78 × 67’’, mixed media on linen. Metallic silver ground

Ju Ja

Documentation of our show Ju Ja at Galeria Esther Montoriol, in Barcelona 2020.

"¡La Quiero!"

¡La Quiero! 

200×150 cm, 78×59'' on Fabriano paper.

Wally Wood’s Lil Abner. Shotgun wedding. 

Pittsburgh To Lebanon

Her

Them 220 x 180 cm mixed media on linen.

Her 200 × 150 cm mixed media on paper.

Dopey, L’il Abner and Daisy Mae

Wally Wood. Comic creator from the 50s. 

Untitled but self-explanatory: 200 × 150 cm, 79 × 59'', mixed media on Fabriano paper.  

Popeye Laverda Mirage 1200 Super Bike

Popeye Laverda Mirage

200 x 150 cm mixed media on Fabriano paper.

Hey Ginger

Hey Ginger. 200 × 150 cm, 79 × 59”. No one seems to get the joke. A very trendy cocktail lounge up the street called Ginger, now new owners.  Behind the bar was an illustration titled “Hey Ginger,” a gift from when they opened. It was my favorite thing there, aside from the cocktails. When they sold the lounge, they gave me the illustration. 

Galería Esther Montoriol. Syd Mostow and Pere Llobera, 2020. We called the show JuJa. It was in the middle of Covid, and people came to the opening. For some, it was the first time they had left their homes in months. Pere and I wanted to show work in the same format 200 x 150 cm paper works based on a similar theme. 

Looking Awry

2022

2 x 150 x 200 cm on Fabriano paper. 

Stairway to Heaven

 

Studio Brooklyn Rail IG

‘‘The Brooklyn Rail’’, if you don’t already know the publication. It is a free New York based contemporary art and culture publication. Monthly.

Forest Gnome and Cupid

“Forest Gnome with Cupid”. The gnome is the blue/fuchsia raster dot figure that's smiling. 

Just Friends

 

Love's Not Love

Galería Esther Montoriol, JU JA. Painting Show. Pere Llobera and Syd Mostow, June to September 2020.

Cupids and Bunnies Fly

‘‘C for Cupid” and “Four Bunnies”. Installation view at Galería Esther Montoriol. JUJA. Syd Mostow and Pere Llobera. 2020. Cupids fly. Bunnies fly. Love is in the air.

Leaders Aren't Made, They are Created

''Leaders Aren't Made, They’re Created''
The beaver is receiving special powers—superpowers, by the fairy.  A fearless leader, or just a beaver on a tree trunk. Can beavers grift?
200 × 150 cm, 79’’ x 59’’, painted drawing (is that even possible?) on Fabriano paper, 2018. 

Happy Bunnies

‘‘4 Happy Bunnies”. The flames coming out of their butts isn't about eating beans. Or farting. They are jetting through the sky. They are frolicking and  free.     

“3 Happy Bunnies”

Hanging our show JUJA at Galería Esther Montoriol, 2020.

Mickey Mouse and Pluto

“Love's not Love”. Galería Esther Montoriol, 2020. JUJA.

No Title Yet

200 x 150 cm mixed media on Fabriano paper. 2021

Popeye Laverda Mirage

Popeye and a Laverda Mirage. 

The Laverda Mirage was a 1200cc, 3 cylinder DOHC Italian super bike from the late 70s. When I came to Barcelona, I'd sometimes see them on the street. But I didn't see a lot of them. Mostly people drove scooters: Vespa Primavera 125cc, or small bikes like the Montesa 125cc, Bultaco 125cc, and the unusual Catalan Sanglas 350.  All small cylinder bikes, relatively affordable, practical and two-stroke. Smokey blue exhaust and the grinding two-stroke sound. Bikes that were initially designed in the 50s and were even back then retro when retro wasn't cool. It was unusual to see super bikes. They were impractical for getting around the city. To drive a 125cc bike, you didn't need a motorcycle license. Unlike the effete BMW Boxer which was the common big bike back then, yuck!, the Laverda was an unusual 3 cylinder four stroke overhead cam design and had the tough Italian design look. They sounded amazing, and I thought they were beautiful and exotic. Another looker was the Italian Moto Guzzi 500. They were used by the Spanish National Police, which I frequently saw, an even tougher looking biker’s bike. And back then, the cops smoked on duty, usually Ducados. It was a whole look. But being 500s, they looked a bit poky, compared to the Moto Guzzi 1000 Le Mans. That was something. Same design but bigger. It was also quite uncommon to see one, and it was equally beautiful like the Laverda Mirage, but sounded harder because of the V twin boom bloom design. Motto Guzzi are bikers' bike. Seeing cops driving them—what could be more Spanish and incongruent? Both were cooler than the Ducati's from the 80s which were flat out race bikes, screaming red, raked forward and looked really uncomfortable to ride. The Moto Guzzi 1000 Le Mans was definitely the most exotic of them all. The Laverda was a bit more elegant. Popeye is driving a Laverda in these paintings. 

Motto Guzzi 1000 Le Mans, 1980s

 Beauty. Orange was Laverda's distinctive color. Not the obvious Ducati or Ferrari red. 

Laverda Mirage 1000 without the faring. It looked a bit like the Honda 750 Super Sport, but way tougher. 

Atelier Cora Eggers

Installation view Atelier Corra Eggers. 

Rip it Out Baby!

The simplicity and flatness is intentional. The trees are painted with a dabber and a refillable marker. To be able to draw a painted line is a great feeling. I'll do anything to avoid using a brush.

‘‘Rip it (Out), Baby!’’, 200 × 150 cm,  79 × 59’’ painted drawing on Fabriano paper, 2019.

 

Gnome BBQ Deer

“Gnome BBQ Dee’’, 200 × 150 cm, 79 × 59'', mixed media on Fabriano paper, 2019.
I started to work on large rolls of paper after working on wood. It is painted with a refillable marker and a sprayed line. No brushes. It was really rewarding to get this done. 

Titian

Based on "Mars Venus and Cupid" by Titian. 

The original Titian is such a powerful painting. My dear friend Toni Serra, R.I.P. suggested the image. So I painted it. 

Installation View Expo at Atelier Cora Egger, Barcelona

"Love's Not Love” at Atelier Cora Egger, June 6, 2019, Barcelona.
The theme of the show deals loosely with the theme of love in: carnal love, lost love, promised love; and the related themes of gender, power, morbidity, sexism, and pornography. This was the first time I had shown my work in a solo show in a long time. The work was new, and the timing of the show couldn't have been better. Thanks, Cora!

This was one of the first raster gnomes I painted. They are all the same theme and subject. A landscape, central gnome in the foreground. A knife in one hand, a bleeding heart in the other.

I was invited to a small group show at Cora's space a few months earlier. She offered me the space to do a solo show. Lots of artists and friends that I hadn't seen for a long time came out to the opening. That felt good.

Beavers R Cute

“Beavers “R” Cute”.   And furry too. 
200 × 150 cm, 79 × 59’’ painted drawing on Fabriano paper, 2018.

Oh my Ears, my Whiskers 1

First in a series, “Oh My Ears, My Whiskers”. 40 × 50 cm, mixed media on wood. A landscape. A house. An exuberant bunny. 

Oh my Ears, my Whiskers 4

This series of bunny paintings were a return to “narrative painting” and the seed for the painting I am doing now. 60 × 40 cm, mixed media on wood.

The Cottage

In 2016_17 did a series of small works on wood panels dealing with the idea of freedom. I wanted to make my version of a traditional landscape painting. So what's in a landscape painting? Well, a horizon line, a house, flowers, and the subject. An exuberant bunny rabbit jumping over a cottage. In this painting, the bunny has disappeared and only the cottage remains.

60 × 40 cm, mixed media on wood.

Oh my Ears, my Whiskers 2

“Oh my Ears, my Whiskers 2”. The title is from Alice in Wonderland. 40 × 50 cm, mixed media on wood. 

Oh my Ears, my Whiskers 5

‘‘Oh My Ears, My Whiskers 5’’. 40 × 50 cm, mixed media on wood. 

Color

Studio view summer/autumn of 2019.  Introducing color again.

I have a thing about frames. Frames in a frame. Centering an image. Making the composition as simple as possible. These were the first that I painted in this paper format. 

NY

 In 1997, after being in Barcelona for almost 9 years and having showed in a bunch of galleries, it was time to leave and go to NY. This was my first studio I had in Brooklyn, NY, which I shared with Yun Fei Gi, a fabulous painter in his own right. It was on north 3rd and Wythe, in a huge building full of artists which eventually became condos and all the artists were chucked out. My part of the studio space was probably 125 sq. ft and it was affordable, $350. Those days are long gone. I really liked the Cobi t-shirt by Mariscal, a Barcelona designer, from 1982. Cobi was the Olympic Games mascot.

Pokey Paintings and the Kid with Moxie

Back in Barcelona, I continued on a long journey in abstraction. I love abstraction. And down the rabbit hole I went. I was caught up in gestural marks. At first working in oil paint, and when I no longer could, I started using Flashe paint thinking it could be an oil paint substitute. Wrong! It culminated in a series of small, intimate works.  A few of the pieces I showed at an alternative art fair to Frieze, in London, called Pilot II in 2005. It was organized by Rory Macbeth, a good friend and a brilliant painter and artist in his own right. 

I thought the work from this series in general was pretty anal, and I started back into figuration and gave up on the pokey abstract work. The real abstract painter who had the moxie was my 3-year-old son. Not me. Check out the video below. 

Unfortunately, he stopped drawing on the walls after about 6 months and never returned to painting or drawing again.