Excerpt of article by Jonathan Griffin, Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles, 2014
In these paintings, a struggle plays itself out on the surface of the canvas. The term schizophrenic is ill- and overused, so let’s call them internally conflicted. On the one hand, they are ecstatic, devotional objects that seem to aspire to the highest orders of human value. The majority of paintings consist of a central image or motif surrounded by layer upon layer of decorated borders. They nod to the folk woodcarving genre of Tramp Art, and to the aesthetics of quilting and Navajo tapestry. Every canvas but one is stretched over a form with gently scalloped edges, reinforcing their association with objects such as rugs or blankets.
In one of the most captivating works, Tweddle has painted an abstract composition with red dollar signs arrayed across it; then, perhaps in a change of heart, he applied torn strips of masking tape and rollered the entire canvas with sky blue acrylic. Where he removed the tape, the original image peeks through the blue. There is no sense that Tweddle is disavowing the painting, however; an inscription, which is also the work’s title, was carefully masked off: ‘Made in U.S.A. Oct 1970 by John’.
