Artworks by Brian Higgins

The intrinsic beauty of oil paint—its luster, its aesthetic sensuality—redeems questionable subject matter. Any subject can look good painted in oils—even objectionable subjects. The Ash Can School, and other deliberately contrarian modernist styles, exploited tasteless subject matter to show-off technique. Today, after art's abject return to subject matter (having exhausted the possibilities of no-subject) there remains the problem of a satisfying painting experience. The homeless men which are the subject of these new pictures are painted in such a way as to reduce the eyesore effect of reality.