“Jimmy McKinney stated that his work was informed by his fascination with boundaries. For instance, he liked to contrast things like beauty with the grotesque; reality with unreality; live models with corpses; traditional media and new media. In each case he felt the juxtapositions of such issues provided the provacative nature of his work.”

“The committee's main criticism rested on skill issues. There was very little that could be said about his content, which was praised. The committee felt that more advanced painting techniques such as glazing might be necessary to pull off Jimmy's goals. There also seemed to be drawing issues in his figures especially in proportions.

The Commitee recommended Jimmy look at contemporary artists such as John Currin (more) and Joel-Peter Witkin. Historical figures suggested would be (Francisco) Goya and (Georges de) la Tour. We felt strongly that Jimmy was on the correct track, but would like to see him take larger risks with the form of work he has chosen especially in light of its connections to illustration.”

My comments:
Well, actually I don't literally like to juxtapose corpses and live models. :) It is more accurate to say that I'm interested in the line between life and death … sometimes I contrast the two, sometimes I'm simply at one extreme or the other. The piece that they were commenting on when this came up is one where I drew a model as a decaying zombie-like woman with lower jaw missing and jewlery hanging from the upper jaw. I was in a dark place that day…

Georges de la Tour is in fact one of the artists that I am inspired by and had intended to mention, and Witkin has been mentioned to me by another teacher previously as someone who has a similar mentality to me (I see the similarities, but he takes it in a different direction than I do.).