Wild Critters, Mike Etoll

I saw this great painting by Mike Etoll over at MNArtists.org a week or so, and realized today that I have been thinking about it ever since. It somehow manages to take all the really important things in art and life and elegantly encapsulate them in a deftly painted and beautiful image. One of the striking things about it for me is the degree to which this painting comes across as being extremely Etoll, without even doing very much. I don't think there was ever a time when Mike was "trying to find his voice." He has been doing these great things with a uniquely Etoll look for the twenty-four years that I have known (or known of) him. It is a great work. It even seems to have some gratuitous collage elements thrown in! This painting is so good it should have an episode of This American Life done about it.