Cowboy Jesus

Cowboy Jesus and the Apostles is both a group of paintings mimicking religious icons and a Western Swing band from Oklahoma that exists solely in my imagination.

Each of the eighteen panels depicts a different saint or companion of Cowboy Jesus. Each has the same gold archway framing them; each holds a musical instrument or some indication of an instrument (Saint John’s drumsticks and the keyboard embroidered on Saint Andrew’s shirt); each is identified by their nickname; and each has some amount of glitter on their person. Besides Cowboy Jesus and the twelve disciples, I have also included Mary and Joseph, Mary Magdalene, and Mary and Martha (twin fiddles), primarily because I wanted to include some female figures. A Western Swing band was the perfect vehicle for assembling all these characters, as those bands are quite large — as exemplified by such bands as Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys or Lyle Lovett and His Large Band.

In earlier works I occasionally used tattoos to tell a narrative about my subjects. For these paintings, I thought of Nudie Cohn, the New York tailor who designed Nashville stars’ rhinestone and embroidered outfits, known popularly as “Nudie suits.” Just as many of Cohn’s creations had emblems worked into the design which typified a particular country star, my saints have some attribute or means of their martyrdom included in their apparel. For instance, Saint James the Lesser (Jimmie) was martyred with a saw, while Saint Peter (Pete) is represented by the keys of heaven.

The Cross of Cowboy Jesus follows the same plan, with various emblems of Christ (roses, fish, a chalice) worked into the design.

These paintings were created with neither a sense of reverence nor a sense of mockery. Like all my work, they use an established narrative or existing subject matter to create new material. In the future, I may do further paintings that tell the story of Cowboy Jesus and the Apostles as they board their tour bus and hit the road to bring the gospel of good music to the world.