02-25-2009
Dear Governor Crist:
I am writing on behalf of (quite possibly) the finest artist in the great state of Florida. Neil Bender is an assistant professor of painting and drawing at the University of South Florida; this title, however, is merely a formality. Neil is better known among his peers as “the greatest painter of any generation (living or dead).” It is for this reason, Governor Crist, that you can understand my dismay when I learned that Neil Bender was not considered the “Best Painter of Tampa Bay” for the 2008 calendar year.
Once per year, Creative Loafing picks a series of “bests” throughout the Tampa Bay area. For 2008, Megan Voeller (staff writer) selected Julie Weitz as the best Tampa Bay painter. Now, Julie Weitz is a fine painter. No one is contesting this fact. Her clean gouache renderings delight the eye and stimulate the mind. But is she the best painter in the greater Tampa Bay area?
Megan Voeller took the better part of a paragraph to describe Weitz’s work:
“Nothing captured our attention this year quite like Julie Weitz’s enigmatic paintings. On pure white paper, her delicate renditions in gouache of a particularly charged symbol — the hood, in its various iconic forms — sent a little shiver up our spine while arousing admiration for her nearly flawless technique. From the KKK to Abu Ghraib, Weitz’s hoods summoned thoughts of bogeymen, as well as entities with more ambiguous associations, yet somehow managed to be vaguely comical, divorced from their real-life contexts.”
This is all well and good except that the article doesn’t so much as mention Neal Bender’s wonderful oil paintings and mixed media works. Painted without under-drawing, Bender focuses on renaissance like renditions of intertwined nebulous body parts without the bother of a perspective system. I call upon the Governor’s office to publicly censure Voeller and dismiss her from her position of area art critic. I also implore you to retroactively name Bender as Tampa Bay’s best painter for the years 2007-2012. I trust you will take swift, appropriate action, Governor Crist.
Sincerely,
Michael Reynolds
P.S. Enclosed is a small reproduction of one of Bender’s works; I believe it adequately illustrates Neil’s mastery of the tactile art of painting.
Enclosed:
2 comments:
first off......that's a collage, you deuschbag. you prop me up with all this oil painting talk, and then put up my M*A*S*H inspired collage?
and man, i laughed seriously, i've been both insulted deeply and praised. it's a back-handed bitch-slap of hilarity.
i wish your letter would've had more of the deep, probing intellectual sophistication of your painting of your other painting teacher.
play on, playa. use and abuse.......
Neil,
I feel as though your understanding of oil paint translates into other media without needing a direct visual comparison... Also, the phrase is "douche bag" (2 words, French derivation). Your spelling is coming dangerously close to Deutsche Bank; maybe German profiteers will find my work and purchase as an investment -- I'll cut you in for 20%.
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