This piece is clearly color over form! It is all about color and energy, the mare merely being a mode of conveyance. I used to sit up in bed, listen to my music on my headphones, and draw with my oil pastels until I was too tired to keep my eyes open any longer. Then I would set whatever I was working on upon the floor, turn out the light, and drift off to sleep. I would assess what I had created in the morning. This is from one such time. I stayed up past 2 am listening to Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and Dinosaur Jr. I think the music had as much influence upon the piece as my sleepily uninhibited imagination, especially the Sonic Youth. Their music is extremely abstract and impressionistic, utilizes rare and sometimes minimal and sometimes elaborately complex melodies, relies heavily upon distortion and unusual tunings, finds beauty in discord, makes fine art out of sonic feedback and sympathetic resonance, and is aesthetically unique. It is not just music; they sculpt fine avant-garde modern art out of sound. This is clearly expressed in Frolicking Iridescence. The mare is deliberately stylized, partly to explore distortion of form and shape, and partly as homage to the electric playground of Sonic Youth. I allowed my mind to go wild with the colors, using pretty compliments here and deliberately clashing there in an attempt to transcend the oxymoron "harmonious discord". The strokes are frenetic, sometimes forcibly gouged into other layers of pigment, and deliberately run at odd angles to increase the confusion, yet her expression is a calm invitation for you to join her romping exploration. This is the result. Whether you think it is precious or obnoxious (and I think it is a little of both) here it is to dance to the sonic resonance of a mercurial beat. Oil pastel on medium weight, slightly coarse paper. Circa summer of 1997.