Laughing Cowboy comes from my series of work featuring themes from the American Old West, Untamed! That series began back in 2016, spanning a couple of years, and featuring a rogue’s gallery of drifters, grifters and outlaws who were mostly up to no good. I have ambivalent feelings about Old West mythology and visuals, both kinda in love with it all and yet also suspicious and leery of the subconscious hold that era seems to have on this nation as it wrestles with struggling to cope with change in the 21st century. Untamed! reflects America in all our absurdity.

This particular painting tends to draw a strong reaction from folks. Apparently many people think he is screaming. though I saw him more as laughing the no-shits-given laugh of a man who’s seen his share of what life has to offer. Maybe that’s the same thing as a scream, I dunno. Maybe it’s the perfect laugh for our times right now. Painted with inks and a sumi brush on absorbent printmaking paper, this is one of my favorite cowboy portraits.