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The X-Files

22" x 15", watercolour, 2001

Still thinking about some of my previous portraits while looking through my folders to see what to post next, I zeroed-in on this one of Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny from the TV show "The X-Files." This is actually my third attempt at these two (using different magazine reference photos each time). One of them had a great like ness of Anderson, but Duchovny looked weird, and the other was exactly reversed. I think I got both of them right this time, proving again that persistence is key.

In one of the earlier paintings (or was it both? I really don't remember...), I put an X in the style of the show's logo in the background and painted it with glow in the dark paint, but this time I wanted to be less obviously (or commercially) referential to the show while still making a reference to "The X-Files." I think this solution is still obvious, but somehow more subtle. Maybe that's a paradox. Maybe it's an X-File itself. The truth is out there.


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