Sixteen Years Old

48″x 44″
Oil paint on canvas
1987
$2,500

This painting (created at age 27) is a reflection on my high school years. I spent a lot of time reading my old journals as I wrote the poem which is scratched into the surface. See the poem below.

Text from Sixteen Years Old:

I’m sixteen years old
angry
pressed into a nonsense world
too much pretense
too much mindless conformity
too much plastic, concrete, steel
I want things to be simpler

I swim

Where will I fit into this world?
Surrounded by my parents answers
it’s hard to find my own
I push away

I swim my anger

I want someone to understand me
to listen, to be close
I want to be held
but sex is scary
I’m lonely
I want things to be simpler

I swim fast

and wonder-
can I scream underwater
without anyone hearing?