Jeannie Maddox & Sam Maddox

“Is it a painting or a photograph?” This is the most commonly asked question asked by festival goers over the past 35 years when they see my large photorealistic swimmers and urban scenes. I paint ala prima, or wet-into-wet, so when I finish a square inch, I never go back and rework that area. My two main themes are the refraction of the body of swimmers underwater and the refraction of things behind glass and the reflections of what is seen in the glass. Although they seem vastly different, the same problem has to be solved in each. I often describe myself as an abstract painter who paints photorealisticly. If you look at some of the shapes in a swimmer piece, inch by inch they look abstract, but when viewed as a whole, that is what the body in churned water looks like.