Elvis and the Arpitaun World
HOWARD FINSTER
HOWARD FINSTER, 1980
A folk artist with visions from God, Finster paints with an untrained hand and creates something closer to the truth than training can give you. Reminiscent of Giotto, his flat planes democratise the world he exhibits. Elvis becomes a religious icon, existing on the same dimension as the organic forms that dance around him like a halo. Finster used figures from culture repeatedly, warping perspectives of time and place to draw allusions between the holy world and the one he lived in. For Finster, anything could be religious, and art was the vehicle to explore it. He believed God asked him to paint 5000 works, and he far exceeded this call.