2014 • 31.25″ x 55.5″
acrylic, spray paint on used fence pickets

Schadenfreude is a German expression meaning “to take pleasure in the misfortune of others.” You see three characters:

  • The hapless victim who is too caught up in feeling sorry for himself to fix the situation
  • The jerk who is satisfied and amused by the greater status he was able, with no effort of his own, to achieved relative to that of his friend
  • The opportunistic ram who takes advantage while the others are distracted

The audience can related to the feelings of both individuals in the piece. You can learn a lot about yourself by recognizing how you empathize with the one and relate to the satisfaction of the other. We’re all guilty of playing the victim roll and also enjoying the mishaps of others. This is what my work is meant to do, to make us aware of our motivations and influencers so we can learn to see them for what they are and take back control.

This piece was a bit of a hit. Those who got it, liked it a lot but it was probably too weird and oddly painted to connect with anyone on a level to inspire a purchase. Never mind how big it was. I destroyed it and it has been incorporated in other smaller pieces, scattered and covered up and spread out around South Texas. I will revisit this though someday and do it up right. With my new style of cutout layering of the fence pickets.

Keep digging, WOODCOCK 🪏

Posted by WOODCOCK

After a long exile in South Texas climbing out of a nihilistic funk, Otis Woodcock has found his way back to the open skies and quiet horizons of the American prairie. Having earned an MFA from Miami University, Ohio, he left his ancestral home in southern Indiana, spending the last three decades between Louisville, Kentucky, and San Antonio, Texas, developing his Iconoclasmatic Pop Art™ practice. On this journey, an anxious recovering Catholic and cancer survivor gradually evolved into the optimistic existentialist whose work is less interested in providing answers than in questioning certainty. Today, Woodcock lives and works where the seasonal rhythms and expansive landscapes of the Midwest serve as the backdrop for an ongoing exploration of belief systems, cultural inheritance, and the subtle poetry of ordinary things.

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