Artifact Puzzles: Tell us about your painting for our new puzzle Consequences of Hypnosis (pictured below).
Kevin Sloan: I have been working with the idea of the improbable becoming possible for quite a while in my work. I wanted to describe the possibilities (or consequences) of concentrated focus. The elephant is able to not only miraculously balance on a house of cards but he also sadly oblivious to the other things happening around him like the fire on the hillside in the distance and the leaf about to fall on him from above. It's a magical and improbable scene but perhaps, for a moment is true.
Artifact Puzzles: Who is your favorite living painter?
Kevin Sloan: Walton Ford. He creates gorgeous, enormous watercolors on paper often depicting animals behaving in unlikely, sometimes human ways. They refer to early naturalist paintings from the 18th & 19th century but with a decidedly contemporary twist. There is always a strong narrative in his work which I appreciate.
Artifact Puzzles: We've seen a couple huge paintings of yours in Opal in Santa Barbara. What size canvases do you like to paint on and why?
Kevin Sloan: I work in a variety of sizes ranging from 11"x14" up to 72"x60". The image I intend to work with tends to dictate the size of the canvas. I generally like to paint objects close to life size (with a notable exception being the elephant in "Consequences of Hypnosis"!). I feel that the canvas needs to hold the objects like a small theater so the relationship of the sizes of the characters directly corresponds to the size of the canvas.
(See our March 24, 2012 blog post for Kevin Sloan discussing his painting The Gift Arrives, which we've also made into a fantastic puzzle!)
