Merlin Carpenter

I saw this painting online in the past couple of days.  I wondered what kind of a presence it might have if I was in the same room with it.  I pondered this because it seemed so one note, so obvious.  Not too far from the sort of petulant thing that seems to be popular at art fairs.  I wondered if I was missing something.  I never expected to see it since Merlin Carpenter is an artist who is shown more in Europe.  Then this morning I walked into  LA MOCA ( Museum Of Contemporary Art Los Angeles ) and there it was in the recent acquisitions.  It really does look like a lot more of a painting in person.  It's really well painted.  Seeing it in a gallery changed the nature of the text, it seemed like a lot less of a one liner and more just a sampling of something obnoxious that someone else said.  Not that that is something one might not conclude from a reproduction but just that way it was painted made it more convincing when standing right in front of it.