Oil Painting by Dan MacDonald - 'The Phantom Eyes and the Blindfolded Man'
This painting is by my friend, Dan. Personally, I think he is the most talented painter I've met in Chicago. I probably prefer his classical style. He is especially good at representing fabric and hair. He is also a talented folk musician (guitar and fiddle) with amazing vocals. Periodically he stops painting to do music.
This is the first painting of a man that I hung in my house. I like the composition having a lot of space above the figure.
I'll tell you a funny story. When I look at the figure, I imagine that the man is a philosopher, and that the blindfold has something to do with knowledge he doesn't have yet or something deep like that. Once, I had a contractor over. He's a regular, and has a huge personality and a huge loudmouth opinion on everything. I brought him inside to show him something that needed work, and he asked me about the painting (his son paints). I told him what I saw there, and he responded, "You know what I see? I see an old guy on his birthday, just before he gets a surprise lap dance."
So there's always that interpretation.
Here's a shot of Dan by his painting, the day I picked it up. He makes those shirts himself, using a sewing machine he keeps in his art studio (because, as he says, "it's so hard to find reasonably priced pirate shirts").
Artist's website: www.danmacdonaldstudios.com