Tomorrow I’m opening a solo exhibition in Tainan, Taiwan. This year has been a big step forward. I did most of my paintings when I was younger, and then stopped, foolishly, because I didn’t want to paint any more until I started selling the old ones. The folly in that statement is just one of the things I’ve learned recently, and I’m not determined to paint, and keep painting, even if they canvases pile up so much they have to be used as furniture.

Another thing I had trouble with was pricing, and I just learned last week a valuable system of pricing by size which the gallery owner assures me is the ’standard’ system for pricing in Taiwan. This is great and takes a huge load off. Plus, because many of my paintings are very large, they are suddenly ‘worth’ much more than I expected to ask for them.

As I begin to get a hang of the business end of being an artist, I’m also becoming much clearer about how I am as an artist. What makes me different, unique? What do I need to work on? Here are some of the things I think I offer as an artist:

1) My art deals with concepts. The vast majority of art is either representational or abstract; I tend to prefer representational art but that’s a personal preference. I adore beautiful landscapes, and especially very technical portraits – but with these subjects you rarely see anything shocking or innovative. They are ‘nice to look at’ and can be very stylistic and some artists are great at doing them. Me personally, I’d get bored. Painting something because it’s beautiful, or to paint something nice to look it, has no intrigue for me.

Most artwork claims to be conceptual – the work of most modern contemporary artists is rough, raw, powerful, messy… but when you get down to it it’s mostly representational, and although it may have a neat theme or idea, and include fantastical elements, it’s usually ‘interesting’ or charming or cute or catchy. But it isn’t a commentary, it has no opinion – and for this reason it cannot be brought into the viewer’s own life. There is simply no point of reference, no bridge between these ‘interesting’ fantastical paintings and the real world of viewers.

In contrast, my paintings almost always present items that are familiar with viewers being used in ways that challenge their existing expectations and associations; they demand a response and a judgment, or a reexamination. My paintings can be interpreted; they lend themselves to dialog.

Each of my paintings presents a very bizarre combination of images, or a ridiculous scene; they usually reference ironic or conflicting elements of culture or society. And – for me at least – they are funny. Rarely do I paint something that doesn’t trigger my (very dark and sarcastic) funny bone. My paintings should make viewers laugh; and after that make them think – this makes them extremely unforgetable. They impact, they surprise, they wow.

Luckily, this is exactly what art is supposed to do, and also luckily, I have no shortage of inspiration; my ideas keep getting better, stronger, more “crazy”. Maybe I am going crazy. Maybe society is. At any rate I think it’s clear my art doesn’t blend in. It doesn’t fit comfortably with what other contemporary artists are doing. My painting’s bright colors, strong lines and shocking concepts don’t get along with the muted, speckled, or stylized paintings that most other contemporary artists are doing (at least in Taiwan), which I’ll admit, makes me self-conscious at times. However,  I must be doing something right because the buzz is growing and I’m getting gallery bookings.