





Over the past hundred and thirty years, the paintings in that index [Mei Moses Fine Art Index] have outperformed bonds by a wide margin, and over the past fifty years they’ve performed about as well as stocks, too.
- The New Yorker Magazine
June 11, 2011 at the Carousel Pavilion at Metro Bank Park on Harrisburg's City Island LeSean McCCoy of the Philadelphia Eagles purchased a portrait for $1200.00 to benefit UCP of CentralPA.





A local Harrisburg resident commissioned a portrait of his
mother from a favorite black and white photograph from 1942 in Philadelphia.
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This, the companion piece to "Uncle Mike from St. Louis",
is "Aunt Joan from St. Louis". It is also a portrait of Joan, Mike's wife.
I was attempting to imitate the blurred, close-up framing of women in early
Hollywood movies, as well as provide a soft, textural feel of the companion
piece to "Uncle Mike from St. Louis", which is painted with a classic, stereotypical,
aggressive male sharpness, both in pose and brushwork. The mug in the foreground
is the famous Pfaltzgraff
pottery from York county PA.
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In classic American portrait style is the latest production to come out
of Molloy Studios. It informally depicts, in most formal high portrait fashion,
the artist's partner's Uncle Mike from St. Louis. In the Artist's own words,
"A tough old Irish contractor who has the mind of a poet. It's an unconventional
pose. I think it shows his personality best— in the midst of a passionate
political-historical debate".
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The soft shadows lay on her tan skin, gently spotted by age and grace. Bright blue piercing eyes peer through chronically squinting eyelids, formed by hot Texan sun, then finished by hotter Brazilian blaze. Kindness and compassion are so natural in her expression, that she wears empathy as an invisible mask, which veils her intensely Texan-American ferocity to not but a complimentary familiarity; calm visage of Khadro counseling and comforting always inadvertently now. I heard her speak once when she came to Pensylvania. She spoke of comforting grief with the real essence of Buddhist process. My father had died and my breath smelled constantly of whiskey. Her voice hypnotically gathered many srpirits of those around and gone before, and one heard them reverberate from her mouth in competition with her own. The sprit of death and life combined in comfort through what she said, and the sound and logic in her voice and the truth of the substance of her speech tolled clear, as the sprits apparently spoke the same and verbatim. The bright colors of her faith and that eastern traditional aesthetic compete not in the piece. A red ceremonial cloth folded neatly offers bright fortune to the unwary viewer, beautifully assaulting the eyes with red. The figure peers through the shade of a ceremonial tent, it's colored banners and tassels wave abstractly from the background, warning of the sun's white brightness beyond. Carnival coloring and furious shapes harboring exotic patterns with deep meanings play the viewer's eye like fire. Khadro's ceremonial ring imposes upon her raised hand, covering her mouth in peaceful, calm, and thoughtful regard. It is like a sculptural element. Painted thickly like Rembrant's jewelry, it jumps from the surface of the painting, gasping for breath, fighting for the life our viewer's eye might grant it. The gold grabs at the tourquoise-colored stone to keep it down, but the colored fury all around it on the painting's surface scares the blue-green stone up, to leave it poised, forever reaching for the stars.
The church I grew up in, had a member, also my family doctor,
who was related in some way to the General Mills fortune, at least in my
memory anyway. His daughters had some connection to Texas, which is where
Khadro is from. I ate Cheerios frequently growing up, and the cereal boxes
had send-away offers for toys and things on them. One such Ad campaign struck
my eye and remained in my memory. I think it was for some glow-in-the-dark
boomerang or something. The way the children throwing the thing in their
backyard were painted, was in a typically 1980's illustrative style. This
now forever associates itself with General Mills, my childhood Family Doctor,
and Texas. Khadro's general appearance also reminded me of an older version
of the doctor's daughters; they look nothing alike in reality. This strange
association played in my head as I painted this painting, and the feel of
that 80's style was inescapeable for me, and is evident in the finished
product, in my opinion. I could not find the Ad campaign or cereal box,
but I did find another evidence of this style in these 80's theme lunch-boxes.
I had one or more of them I'm sure.
It has been noted that the left eye of the portrait is odd-looking. This
is a reference to the portrait I did of my grandfather. Upon completion
of that piece my family noted that he didn't have a cataract. Neither does
Khadro. The light was in my grandfather's eye. When I came across the beautiful
photo by John Swearingen, I noticed a similar focus by the coincidental
lighting of her face. I then exaggerated it to remind me of my granfather's
portrait, as the piece was about the grief process involving my father,
the son of the grandfather I painted the portrait of.
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