” ‘Target’, uses Jasper Johns’ painting: “Target with Plaster Casts”, as the background, but I cropped out the plaster casts. John’s painting is painted in encaustic, which is a wax medium, and although I used oil paint in my painting, I tried to emulate the thick texture of the wax.
My model is looking very pensive and away from the viewer, so the interpretation of the painting is left to the viewer to decide if she is the target of something good or bad., or what does the target mean? The interesting thing about my paintings is that I can often see multiple meanings in one painting, sometimes opposites, so a lot is left to the viewer to determine what the painting means to them.
My painting choices here were mostly based on design and color. The combination between background and the figure is an intuitive thing to me that I can’t really explain…I paint what looks good together, and sometimes the meaning becomes clear later.”
-Suzy Smith
