With our love, we can save the world.”—George Harrison

The Beatles were really a “gift” to the world of our culture. They seem like a miracle to me, geniuses that created PERFECT pop songs that were on the same artistic level of Mozart or Michelangelo. It’s fantastic that we have so much recorded history of them, on photos, film, television, and of course, in their recorded music. Movies of fine artists are always boring or seemingly “false” of a recording of their moves to change art history. However, records of musicians capture sonically these moments, and pictures and film are incredible documents of time changing (the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show is a fantastic recording of history changing before your eyes, as is Jimi Hendrix at Monterey Pop and so on). By painting from photos of these moments, I try to bring about the essence of what was happening at that specific historic time—indeed, perhaps they are a true version of “history painting.”

It’s incredible to me that in the many photos I have collected of the Beatles, most often Paul is grouped with Ringo, and John with George when they are separated into pairs. In this image, I really felt the relationship between the two martyred Beatles, and the atmosphere seemed to truly glow.

I was looking for a lot at Picasso’s “classical period” when I was painting this, and can only think the exaggerated weight of the heads and hands must have subconsciously been influenced by this… It took me a terrifically long time to get John’s face right (like in most of the paintings I create out of images from famous stars, I immerse myself in their “oeuvre” and world when I paint them, with their films and inspiring music playing in the background).

I particularly like his praying hands in this one, and feel that one hand is in the “real” space of the painting, while the other is on a mirrorlike “other side,” just like George is touching John’s hair, I’m “touching” their image, hoping to go to their world.