27 Club

For years I've had an idea floating around like a rubber duck in my mind bath: art creates art.

Whenever I'm painting, there's music playing. I get lost in the work, disappear into the music, and somewhere between the two, ideas emerge. The paintings I make are not created in silence; they're created in conversation with thousands of songs, albums and musicians.

I've often wondered about the people responsible for the soundtrack. Why do so many musicians seem drawn toward the same extremes? Why do so many stories of extraordinary creativity also involve self-destruction? And why are we still fascinated by those stories decades later?

The myth of the 27 Club has long been debunked as exactly that—a myth. Yet it remains strangely compelling. Perhaps that's because the musicians associated with it left behind work so powerful that it continues to influence generations long after they are gone.

This series brings together the six iconic members of that club. Six musicians whose lives ended early, but whose creative legacy continues to ripple outward through culture, through memory and, in this case, through paint.

Although each portrait exists as an individual work, I painted them as a single connected piece. The frames were joined together to create one long canvas, linking not only the personalities but also the music that connects them. My hope is that they remain together. But if they don't, I like knowing they will always share the same brushstrokes.

Perhaps someone standing in front of them will be inspired to create something of their own.

After all, art creates art creates art.

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