John Wezley Haywood

These oil paintings reflect the urban and rural aspects of Kentucky's unique culture. I grew up in a remote rural community, formerly called Risner, after my mother's family, in Floyd county, in the eastern part of the state. As our rural communities grew, the area soon became a part of the town Martin. The Risner post office has been destroyed to make way for private landowners that have begun to populate the area. My paintings are a way of investigating this clash of rural and urban lifestyle in the form of representational narratives. For example, folk music, at one time, was passed on from individual to individual, through immediate contact. Today, modern technology allows anyone to learn from compact discs, printed materials, and the Internet. In Radio Preacher, we see how religious practices have been altered through mass communication. The soda machine in the studio gives us insight into the corporate entities that have penetrated even our most sacred ceremonies.