I have been painting now for about ten years. Words I would use to describe my paintings are quirky, tongue-in-cheek, art from the spirit. My paintings could be classified as abstract, landscape, figurative and caricature art. My preferred medium is oil on paper, mounted on wood.

I create my works first by drawing. Then I apply and manipulate paint. As I work, I pay attention to what is happening. Eventually I see the art start to emerge. Like sculpture, which emerges from a block of marble, I think paintings emerge by applying colors to let the art out. Art emerges from the background, not from lines or shapes superimposed over the top.

I don’t know that I consciously choose subjects. Rather, ideas come to me—for example, the three small Screaming Women paintings in the Hashtag series (Hashtag #3, 2015–16). Perhaps I’m like a little boy who wants to be naughty, who likes to make fun of the fat man lying on the beach.

I take photos for ideas. Occasionally I search my photos for an idea. But most often, I paint from memory. Snapping a photo plants a mental image.

I think back to my theater acting classes after college and specifically to the advice of a drama coach about handling material (a script). “Get the material, read it over and then figure out how to make it interesting.”

As soon as I block out a work, I start thinking about how to make the work interesting. What brush strokes should I use. What textures should I create. And then I follow through, like throwing, not tossing a ball. When I apply a brush stroke, I follow through with the idea.

My first painting, Full House (2014), was inspired by the theater. I’m in the painting, standing in the wings, waiting to go onstage. The “canvas” was an experiment: a white cotton percale sheet glued to a large piece of wood. An artist friend liked the color of the crummy pastels I was working with. He taught me how to blend pastels with turpentine to achieve an effect.

To create Street Vendor (2023) I drew and drew without stopping. When I started to apply color, a face emerged. Paintings speak back to me as I work. Sometimes I go too far. When that happens, I stop and fix it.

A purely abstract painting, like Gaza (2024) started simply by applying my emotions. When I added people and a few political symbols (e.g., flags), a point of view emerged. The painting is not pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian. It is simply a statement about a moment.

That encapsulates my painting.

— JR Mitchell (Raymond Mitchell Perusina Jr.)