Love lost, muse found

When couples split up, some have trouble dividing their most prized, communal possessions. Newport Beach artist Jason Maloney offers some advice, albeit cynical and gruesome, on how to handle shared custody of a pet in his latest painting, “Half of Everything Is Fair Be By Later for the Cat.”

Maloney’s work is part of the Untitled Love Project, an art exhibition analyzing the broken heart — something “everyone can relate to” — now on display at the J Flynn Gallery in Costa Mesa.

“The show is all about examining how insane we get over broken hearts,” said Maloney, who also paints rides and displays for Disneyland. “We just get so out of our minds that we almost become different people.”

About 30 artists from cities throughout the world revisited a past relationship to find inspiration for their paintings and illustrations, some focusing on the beauty of a former lover, others the pain of heartache.

Curator Kevin Staniec, an independent filmmaker living is Los Alamitos, came up with the idea for the exhibition while working on his second novel. Struggling to find the words to describe his own experience with love lost, he decided to extend the challenge to a handful of his favorite artists.

“Everybody gets in and out of relationships, but not everyone shares their experience,” said Staniec, 27. “I figured it would be therapeutic and at the same time an inspiring story.”

As a reluctant watcher of reality television shows, Staniec hopes to give gallery visitors a “classier way” of being able to peer into other people’s lives.

For Maloney, humor and sarcasm always seemed to be the best way to deal with loss, as reflected in his oil and acrylic painting.

“To get through the initial shock of it, I think you kind of have to laugh at it,” he said. “I mean, what else are you going to do?”

Though romance, or lack thereof, is a fairly common source of artistic inspiration, this exhibition presents the “lighter side” of love, said gallery owner Jack Flynn.

“Love is never a one-and-done, happily-ever-after, rainbows-and-puppy-dogs kind of a thing,” Flynn said. “Heartbreak seems like the most devastating thing at the time, but we all look back and can’t believe how ridiculous we were.”

Sponsored by ISM: A Community Project, an Orange County nonprofit dedicated to the promotion and support of the arts, the show is in the first of several phases, throughout which Staniec will invite new artists to participate. In the end, he plans to compile a large book featuring each artist’s artwork and story, along with online additions made by the public at the show’s website, www.untitledloveproject.org.