Deep Ellum Open Studios, 2020

This year, I'm participating in Deep Ellum Open Studios by offering canvas prints of some of my recent digital paintings. They are priced at $50 to $75 for curbside pickup by appointment outside my studio at 3800 Commerce Street. Available at Strauss paintings - Canvas Prints

Emporio Armani

 

Due to Covid-19, since March I've mostly been painting digitally at home. After about 35 digital paintings (please see my instagram), I feel as though I'm starting to get a grip on the medium. In some ways it's easier and some ways more awkward than oil painting. Digital painting has led me to work in layers and most recently to wanting to work with layered imagery. As an outcome of my media-addled mind, I'm happy to let content collide and leave meaning in suspension. 

The background of this painting is based on a famous Gregory Crewdson photo of Pittsfield, Mass. and the foreground is based on a photo of survivors of the Beirut dock explosion in August.  The title of this one comes from the tee shirt.

flea market at the Double Wide

Painted from a photo I took at a flea market a couple of blocks from my studio. I knew the image was not making an easy composition. I did my best using color and lighting to unify it. I was also interested in switching to total abstraction for some pictorial elements. Used magenta and cyan to expand the colorspace. Oil on panel 30 x 24"

shed, Fabrication St., Trinity Groves

Painted from a mid-summer snapshot of a tumble-down storage shed wrapped in vines. 24" x 27"

Northwest Highway, Dallas

Looking above and beyond..
22" x 27.5"

sunflowers, Bishop Arts

Sunflowers wilting in mid-summer heat.

dumpster, Trinity Groves

This was a brilliantly illuminated dumpster in a field behind Fabrication Street. An altar of worship now hauled off and gone.

Flea Market at the Double Wide

I went to a flea market at the brilliant Double Wide bubba bar down the block from my studio. I was thrilled to stumble on this this surreal confluence.

Trinity Groves, Fabrication Street

From a photo taken after one of the spring floods. This building should be a Dallas City Landmark - it is graffitti perfection. Needless to say, I was captivated by the bright vision reflected into abstraction by the water.

new studio

I feel I was one of the luckier refugees from the closure of the Continental Gin Studios for an inane gentrification project. I moved a half mile to a small but beautifully lit space in the Mitchell Lofts.

Trinity Groves, road closed

More urban warfare in Trinity Groves.

Texas pool party

From an instagram shot at an Order of the Eagles pool in town. Just the pure summer indulgence of the scene grabbed me. The animation of all the figures suggested a tapestry and I was interested in flattening out depth. Exhibited in Dallas 214 show at the Latino Cultural Center.

Trinity Groves, Fabrication Street

Old country lane in Trinity Groves, still surviving for now. Simplified flat color.

Trinity Groves

Corner of Parvia and Bedford. All the surrounding lots have been bulldozed. Experimenting with posterization-based simplification.

Window Rock, Arizona

Painted from a Flickr photo. Brake-light flash and timeless sandstone.

Boothbay Harbor, Maine

Painted from a vacation snapshot. The near foreground was dissolved into quantum uncertainty rather than adhering to closeup detail. Private collection.

Trinity Groves

In the midst of the debacle of getting kicked out of Continental Gin Building along with 60 other artists, I thought I was going to be able to rent space in a tin shed across from this one. I was interested in the contrast between convulsive graffiti and the simplicity of the shed.

Chatham, Massachusetts

From an Instagram photo with permission. One of my better skies, decisive and quick.

Enchanted Rock

The granite weathers gray but younger breaks are orange. Beautiful timeless central Texas landscape,  but all the rock detail drove me crazy.

Barton Springs

From a Flickr photo of my favorite water park. I was interested in the contrast of sunlit water emerging from blackness. Private collection.