Jim Calafiore

In mid-2012, I tried something a little different. I had an idea for a personal project, something to display in my home. A different look at superheroes, painted on small 12"x12" canvases; a lot of people seeing it have called it Jackson Pollack meets pop-art, and while that wasn't the inspiration, I can't argue against it. There have also been some comparisons to Denny Dent. Again, not the inspiration, but I can see it.

There have been plenty of "splatter painters", both abstract and representative, to be inspired by, but this idea really grew out of my black and white comic book work, where I would sometimes delineate a silhouette (or heavily shadowed figure) from a black background by splattering white along the edge. I liked the way the figure "emerged" from the black. I thought it would be interesting to see how that worked using the heroes basic colors, and portraits seemed a way to go.

And it looked kind of cool.

Below are photos of the first installation in my home, followed by commissions done since for other people. I'll be adding new commissions/canvases as I do them. (I also do preliminary studies in the computer, and I'll post a few of those.) Hope you get a kick out of them.

(Newest individual painting images added are at the bottom of the page.)


These are not all my favorite characters; some were chosen for color balance, and I spent a while rearranging the canvases until I felt they all fit right.