"Blind Sadness" by S, Chicago, raw pain on paper

Rejection isn’t an easy thing to deal with. Neither, apparently, is going through life with box kites for hands. Chicago artist S debuted this shocker at last week’s “Look What I Did!” showing on the city’s slumbering north side. The reactions ranged from confusion to outrage – proof that S touched a nerve usually well insulated in lattes, sunscreen and Bay Rum. I’m of two minds of this piece, entitled “Blind Sadness”; while I applaud S for not just addressing but taking down and de-tusking the elephant of emotional abandonment in the room, I feel the piece reaches beyond its simple means -- takes that well-earned attention and flaunts it a bit too much -- to try and sneak in some personal artistic postscripts. We may never know who or what BOBOHOO is or represents (best guess is a Twin Peaks-ian father/demon figure – see the encircled BOB) but wouldn’t that make rich texture for a work of its own? Patience, S, the spotlight is focusing, your tools are sharpening, it’s almost show time.