This is not a generic background, but it is a generalized background. Distinguishing characteristics have been purposely excluded, but the "beach" still has a strong resonance with the beaches of Ventura County where I live.

The imagery in my paintings is invented, or rather arrived at, through the act of painting itself. I don't paint directly from life. Of course I do observe life directly and these observations guide me while painting. I change things over and over in each painting until it starts to open up and resonate for me. I need to see a spark behind the eyes and then I try to develop things from there.

The background is an extreme simplification of the beach: sand, sea, sky, sun. Before the term took on a different connotation I suppose you could have called it an abstraction. I want the viewer to feel beach-ness rather than to see something that looks like a proper beach.

I don't think in terms of types or narratives. That has never been my intention. I accumulate and dispense with details. The lips were probably closed and then the little sliver of teeth and tongue added a whole different feel, a good one in this case so it remained. At a certain point, this back and forth leads to an odd, somewhat deadpan balance. At that point, the painting starts to breathe and I try to get out of the way--hopefully something deeper than my intention starts to emerge.

She's drinking a Modelo Especial with it's lovely regal label. "Alta California" is a slight nod to Mexico: our shared  past and a shared coastline divvied up by language and fences. But that's just my take, after the fact. I'm happy that others will take it somewhere else.