El Cabro Beata (The Pious Goat)

“For several years I have been exploring a series of gouache paintings I named ‘Strange Dreams’. for these surreal and ironic images that draw from and twist the familiar into grotesque and sometimes dark and disturbing. These little gouache paintings are based on dream-like visuals that are meant to share emotional content. I have always been fascinated with the dark dream-visuals that sometimes seep into your subconscious, and in this series of paintings, I tried to put those strange dreams down on paper.

All of the paintings are done in gouache on watercolor paper. They’re an ongoing experiment with medium and composition and the potent nature of dreams. I believe color is really emotion. Color choices are made to reinforce those emotions. I think there are no deep, dark, hidden secrets. It’s just fun to play with the emotions art can generate. To me there’s a sense of poetry in the playful use of surreal elements.

Continuing in the Gouache Series, ‘Strange Dreams’, this collection of four portraits portray the nature of piety. It is a humorously haunting theme reflecting a bleak outlook on humanity and religion.” – Bill Mayer