“Shell shock” 2001 Acrylic on canvas 72 x 48”

Every New Yorker who saw this piece remembers it. 

I think I mentioned the 'screeching tires' thought of this to my friend Greg one day and he loved it. I refined the writing a little bit and made it into a large painting. The coloration was a no-brainer. I wanted both the letters and the background to be sky blue. I wanted it to be something that could be read, but not without trouble. The thing about screeching tires is that no matter how many times you hear them, you’re always waiting for the crash at the end of the screech. That’s how it had become with airplanes going over New York City. Now people were nervous. After planes started flying over Manhattan again, you could see the blasé citizens of NY stopping on the sidewalk and looking up it the engine was too loud. Another attack?

For more of this body of work, click here: http://www.funism.com/art/afterthe11th.html

Roadrunner

Geococcyx Californianus 1998
Acrylic on canvas 41 x 33”

Unique amongst species, the Geococcyx californianus, or roadrunner has had its reputation almost completely taken over by popular culture.
Neither mice nor rabbits nor ducks nor horses are so tightly tied to the image created for them by popular culture. (Did you immediately think of Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck or Mr. Ed?)
I’ve put the mostly grey roadrunner in the most cartoonish surroundings I could create, with crazy colors and a fish-eye view, reminiscent of Looney Tunes’ concentric circles. (Remember Porky Pig waving out from the middle?) The wind is blowing trash through the landscape, a wrapper of some product from the ACME company has landed on the bird, partially obscuring it. ACME is, of course, the company that created all of the products used by Wile E. Coyote in his attempts to capture roadrunner.
On the barbed-wire fence, a piece of day-glo surveyor’s tape blows in the wind. Just another visible manifestation of mankind’s unending attempts to take over nature.

For more art by Norm Magnusson, click here: www.funism.com.