Y O U R O T H E R L I F E "This Isn't a Hobby."
Photo by
Mark Lee Throughout his life, Sober has juggled a few day jobs-- house painter, truck driver, messenger, cook--in order to pursue his true vocation. On and off since 1996, he's shelved books and helped patrons at Hopkins's Milton S. Eisenhower Library. Sober paints richly colored scenes in oil on hardboard, which he buys and has cut at Home Depot. His work carries an element of everyday spun into fantasy; in the words of Baltimore curator George Ciscle, it is both "poignant and whimsical."
Sober likes indecisive spaces. In one painting, a suitcase
lies open, exposing a hammer inside. In another, an oddly
shaped outhouse sits by the side of the road, door ajar.
Some images are slightly sinister, funny, or sad. In one
painting, men in traditional Orthodox Jewish dress stand in
a haphazard row, their backs to a corpse. "I'm not sure
what that painting is about," he says, "though I did it at
a time when there was death in my life." He pauses. "I
think that one is about being alone." |
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