The Interiors and Under Series, Initiated Circa Mid-1970s

Describing himself as an individual who is “obsessively introspective and only grudgingly adapted to reality,” Titus’ paintings represent a self-absorbed confrontation with those subjects he finds most perplexing and difficult to resolve; sexuality, aging, love, death, and one’s relationship with God. He shares with trope-l’oeil painters an intense reverence for the “object” but departs from this tradition in his illogical combinations and elements of the fantastic. His intent is not to simply represent but to create a symbolic narrative. Equally drawn to the grotesque and the beautiful, his paintings blend an unsettling juxtaposition of these two extremes.