Original artwork description:

Expressionist oil painting mainly painted with palette knife, on a rollered slate black background.

This is the latest in the "Mask" series of oil paintings.

We all wear masks in our daily lives to protect our vulnerabilities, but if if you look closely enough these vulnerabilities are always seeping out, the mask is always, sometimes imperceptibly, slipping to reveal more than we would like.

The title is a play on the Beatles song "Happiness is A Warm Gun" - instead I suggest a fundamental absence of love in early life can lead to extreme violence in later life. It goes deeper than happiness, it is a compulsive need to fill a hole left from the past by taking away what others have. Judging them for having something he never had. Penalizing them too.

Materials used:

oil painting on linen canvas

Tags:

#james henry johnston #gun crazy #oil painting #portrait #painting #urban #man #palette knife #expressionist #artfinder #masks #serial killer