number fifty-four million six hundred one

"if i knew then what i know now, i wouldn't have had my little accident."

number fifty-four million six hundred one: my beetlejuice piece for the autumn society's 3B show at gallery 1988 venice !  my third and last 3-dimensional piece for the show. with the waiting room background, and in 3D: the gal in half, table, and desk window. since photos do don't the layered paintings any justice, here are images of the different layers, to get a better idea of how the piece looks in person:

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(below, you may notice the 3D effect of the window on the glass raised 1/4" over miss argentina on the background)

this has my absolute FAVORITE pop-art piece to paint, seeing as beetlejuice is one of my favorite movies of all time. it has just always been such a special movie, close to my heart, so much nostalgia, bringing me back to my childhood every time i see it. i desperately wanted to do 3 different scenes for this piece (the singing possession scene, the bring back to life scene, and the afterlife waiting room.) it pained me to choose one, but i had such a distinct vision for the afterlife waiting room in my head, that i just knew i had to do it.

i also had a really hard time with this scene because there was just too much i wanted to include. so many unique and amazing characters that deserve to be highlighted. due to size restrictions, i had to limit the characters illustrated, so unfortunately i was sad to cut out some of the greatest characters ever (the smoker, the employee who got ran over, the camper in the sleeping back with the rattlesnake.) i considered adding them all resulting in cluttered, chaotic scene, but i feel like the afterlife waiting room atmosphere is so calm, quiet, and awkward, that i tried to keep that same vibe in my piece.  so! here we have miss argentina (the wrist slitter), shrunken head dude, chicken bone choker, shark attack victim, and girl in half.

i made up for the exclusion of the other waiting room characters, by adding little subtle details here and there.  mr. chicken bone man above is holding the handbook for the recently deceased! i would have loved to do a piece based on that handbook, but i was excited to have it as a minor detail in my piece. also, i would have loved to do a 3D piece of the sandworm in its environment, so instead i did a mini tribute to the sandworm as a random magazine cover on the table in the waiting room.

i had one more little tribute in my piece. instead of painting the actual paintings that were on the waiting room's walls in the movie, i decided to turn the sculptures made by lydia's stepmother into little paintings (below.) i used some extra texture to make them "pop." i've always loved her sculptures, despite how little i'm normally attracted to abstract art. it may be because they came to life in the end, who knows, but i love them and thought it would be a fun extra touch. i also wanted to note that i gave the walls a ton of texture to give it that same look as in the movie. i was (am) pretty proud of that...

so i hope beetlejuice fans out there love it and appreciate the little things as much as i do! it was one of my favorite pieces ever to make.