Blues & Browns

Aloysious T. Dougherty III, Costa Mesa portraitist/filmmaker/writer/musician/ photographer, has launched a website (www.dougherty3.com/art/index.html) offering a compelling peek into his shadowy obsession with early jazz and blues musicians. I'm no art hippie, but I dig what I see in Dougherty's impressionistic interpretations of menshim from Charlie Patton to Thelonious Monk rendered in pencils, watercolors and charcoals that capture the essence of his subjects in sparse but powerful lines and splashes of gloomy hues. I'm not sure I quite understand (or approve of) Dougherty's distracting use of descriptive sentence fragments to adorn his drawings and paintings. I'd like to see Dougherty take on a creepy, insect-like portrait of Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon wielding his baton and leering cruelly through gigantic gold teefers. C'mon, quote me a price, dude. Leave the prose out though, okay? Great pictures make mere words unnecessary.