Oz in Oil

Michael Varley is a fine artist as well as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and he was included in a recent show of work by the museum's guards. This particular piece is one in a series of Oz paintings titled Over the Rainbow #2 and I am utterly, completely and totally head over heels in love with it. Every piece in the series is wonderful, but for some reason this one simply screams in my face. It's the perfect melding of one of my fondest childhood memories (what little girl doesn't want to be Dorothy?), the starkness of the work, the visceral feeling of the storm that sent Dorothy's house flying, and the fact that it's just plain funky as hell. I want this work!

Over the Rainbow #2, 2007-08, Michael Varley

Photo of Over the Rainbow courtesy of mvarley.com.