Lets talk about Max Beckmann, because lately he has gotten under my skin, (in a good way). I spent quite a bit of time in the "Beckmann" room at the St Louis Museum of Art. His work is complex. Slash after slash of paint is layered up into a chaotic frenzy, which ends up becoming a plant form, or a cityscape, or people. Beckmann's work embodies the two forms in art that I am striving to develop in my own painting, to simplify form through stylization, and to create complex paint surfaces. Its like taking a simple children's book illustration and painting it with a brush on the end of a ten foot pole while standing in a kayak floating in a pond. Basically that's what I am trying to achieve. Beckman was great at it.