 |
| 59th Annual Boardwalk Art Show Warden Family Foundation's Best in Painting Award |
  |
| Isaac McCaslin, Collector of Fine Things, 46 x 60 in, oil on canvas, 2014 |
The Collector of Fine Things is a painting using beautiful and grotesque relationships to spark different ideas about materialism and value. I suggest the questions: ‘Who is the collector?’ and ‘What are the fine things’ and “Why are the things fine?” I spent a summer hitchhiking through California hanging out with the homeless, sleeping in parks, under bridges and in shelters, and these experiences subconsciously set the ground for this painting. Value itself is a priceless psychological possession, which a person of any standing—high or low in the social hierarchy—can project. My grandfather valued the possessions hidden in the cart depicted in this painting for reasons I may never know. However, now that he is dead the items hold value to me only insofar as I project on to them my grandfather’s consciousness. Even if, in the painting, I create a semblance of the value of his memory, the painting is only an impression of my sensation of self; it, too, will fade into dust long after I die.
