During the process of working on the Bad Painting series I have come to terms with the unpopularity of the work and now I simply don't care if people love, like, dislike or even hate my paintings.

Bad Painting by Jay Rechsteiner

BAD PAINTING is a series of paintings that I categorize as Bad Realism which is work that is not only bad in terms of style & craftsmanship but most importantly in terms of content. The badly executed paintings represent the underlying bad reality of the actions depicted, i.e. the paintings are as bad as the world they depict. The paintings are based on true events. The work challenges the Western sense of beauty, perfectionism and fear of failure. I personally find making this work very liberating as I am not restricted in terms of how well I paint. Rooms are distorted, bodies are out of proportion, shadows fall into the wrong direction etc.

Although I don't consider my paintings to belong to the popular genre of Bad Painting, I have always been fascinated by the freedom of 'bad' painters such as Joan Brown or Neil Jenney. I use the term Bad Painting as the title of this specific series of work. 'Badly' painting doesn't only set me free from the constraints of 'good' & 'decent' technique but also gives me a feeling of everything-goes/everything-is-fine. There are obviously a lot of people who don't like this series, not only because of the way they are painted but also due to the themes and subject matters.