Gaylien Invaders
Gaylien Invaders (2016)
24×18 Pastel on Pastel Paper
Original is Sold
Jimmy’s night started out great. He took his best girl to the drive-in to see the new 3-D movie Men From Mars. But toward the end of the evening, she just wanted to kiss and make out, while Jimmy preferred to keep the plans he had with his buddies. So he dropped her off, met the boys at the soda shack, and headed home. Then the night got crazy. In the middle of a dream, he sprang from his bed. His jaw dropped when he saw two muscular green extraterrestrials poised to enter the gaping, smoking hole they’d just blasted into his bedroom wall! This had to be a dream. He hoped... it wasn’t.
I went a little outside the box for this year's Halloween painting, but a space alien feels right at home in the genre. They are a staple of that classic 1940s, '50s, and 60s horror movie era that gave us our pop culture images of the werewolf, the mummy, Dracula, and Frankenstein. With Gaylien Invaders, I aimed to capture that vintage 1950s sci-fi B-movie poster aesthetic, complete with dramatic lighting, a glowing UFO mothership hovering in the background, and, of course, a distinctly playful gay twist.
