Like many folk artists, Jon Serl started painting late in life. His first hasty attempts were made around World War II. By this time, Serl had already experienced a full life, working in vaudeville, in film, and as a laborer in California and the Southwest. A pacifist, he fled to Canada during both world wars to avoid service. He was married three times, but each union ended in divorce.

In the 1970s, fed up with America’s capitalist consumer culture, Serl settled in the California desert town of Lake Elsinore and began to paint. Executed in oil paint on found surfaces, his works are often brash, bold, and expressionistic. He explored the whole range of techniques with paint and brush, and his paintings are sophisticated and complex. A true painter’s painter, Serl applied paint in a thick impasto as well as light washes of color. Perhaps because he began painting so late in life, he didn’t waste much time and was quite prolific.

Serl’s work is abound with characters. Often compared to theatrical stages, his canvases usually have a mysterious narrative that explore both inner and outer worlds, the emotional and physical. The figures that people his paintings often express dualities: male versus female, nature versus technology, good versus evil. The twinning of life’s experiences may reference Serl’s struggle with his sexual identity.

Between Two Worlds is a cunningly seductive painting. Its complex composition hinges on the central character, who stands at the base of the painting in a blue sheath dress and whose hands are gnarled and tense. Although clothed in a dress, this figure reads male. The two worlds referenced in the title are neatly represented by the pale, bubble-like space and the darker landscape bordering the central activity. The protagonist’s pain seems to be from knowing that he is being watched, literally, by everyone in this painted environment. His hands lead one to view the screaming mouth of a tortured face. Odd goblin like creatures and tadpole like ghosts loom overhead. The canvas is crowded with peering faces that taunt the central figure. Under their gazes, the main figure is caught in a terrified state, creating a haunted feeling for the entire piece. Could this be a representation of Serl’s bisexuality? Serl spent considerable time and effort rendering the distorted face, adding importance to its emotive quality, and the crowded, confused composition is brought together by the central figure. The sensitive use of color, a characteristic of Serl’s best artworks, only heightens the drama of this painting.

Brooke Davis Anderson, "Between Two Worlds," in Stacy C. Hollander, American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 397.