The Story of "Boy On Horse"

Driving to band practice one day, my brother Matthew and I passed a free pile with this incredible painting. I immediately knew it had to be put up in our music space. It quickly became known as Boy on Horse. Looking over at it while we played, I often wondered who had painted it and where the inspiration came from. Was there a story?

We joked that we should use this amazing painting as our next album cover. Ryan Olson, one of our primary songwriters, started to write songs around the theme of the boy and his horse. After songs had come to fruition and recordings were shaping up, I figured we should try to make Boy on Horse (the record & the painting) heard and seen as far and wide as possible, in hopes that its fabled painter might hear it and reach out to us someday, and answer our many questions.

The cover art concept began to evolve when our bass/string player, Matt Radtke, called the Portland Art Museum to inquire about a temporary exhibit of the piece. His plan was that once Boy on Horse was in the museum, we could then take a photograph of the painting while it was being enjoyed by local art-goers. In this way, the image for the record would be portrayed as a picture of the picture, and take on an even more powerful presence.

Although Matt didn't receive a call back from the museum, several months later into the lockdown of 2020, our bandmate Ryan surprised us with a carefully curated photorealistic rendering of Matt's idea - Boy on Horse in all its glory, hanging in a gallery surrounded by a mass of avid art-lovers, including both a boy and his horse in the crowd gazing at the painting of themselves. 

Our mission is to release and promote our album Boy on Horse to a wide range of people, with the hope that the original artist of Boy on Horse stumbles across it one day and realizes the power of their art.

- Paul Seely