This illustration, done back in the early 1990s for Ballantine Books, is a good example of the direction I was pushing the romance book cover genre at the time. I wanted a feeling wildness and passion that was deeper than the current covers. I think it succeeded at doing that, maybe even going a bit over the top. Several years after it was finished I entered it in a serious art competition, called Passion. It was the first time I had shown an illustration in a so-called "fine art" setting. They hung the painting in the front entrance and it was reportedly the most popular painting in the show by a huge margin.  But critics were unsure about what they were seeing. One writer wondered if I was doing a tongue -in-cheek sendup of romance covers, or if it was in fact a cover. I love confounding the art world, which is notoriously elitist.

I was reminded of my first encounter with Pop Art. There, the artists used common items, like Brillo boxes, Campbel Soup cans comic book illustrations, all items from the mass culture was usually ignore and reinterpreted them as High Art. Romance cover art is usually dismissed and put down by the art elite as trash. Beloved by the public, hated by the elites, it's a perfect storm of culture clash.