Much of Jan Wurm's work explores the vagaries of romance, marriage, betrayal, and loss. The hotel series sets the stage just as the ship paintings obfuscate the deceptions. The social primacy of youth and beauty engenders the reliance on plastic surgery and domestic pandering typified by "Galatea." As cautionary tales writ large, cycles of Greek myths examine issues of power, fidelity, and judgement. From contemporary scenes of political, social, and familial alliances surface the figures of Prometheus, Medea, and Antigone. These canvases hold the markings of contemporary life unfolding to reveal the broader implications of loyalty and responsibility.

A pervasive concern of this work is a fundamental power structure which determines personal expectations. How people view themselves and the world is reflected in iconic distillations of California life. Leisure, work, and family provide settings in which the values of society can be decoded. Simple encounters and activities provide images in which people, through body language, gesture, and fashion, reveal more intimate aspects of their self-conceptions and expectations. Both public and private manners mirror the self-images of people. How people view their lives is determined by values passed on not only by the family, but also by society. Individuals are educated to assume certain positions and attitudes. These paintings attempt to go beyond the gesture of an individual's presence and confront the underlying social condition. The rendering of the internal reality draws upon memories, fantasies, and expectations through the use of ghosts, shifting focus, overlapping planes, and fissures in space, making explicit what is otherwise invisible. These large-scale, frieze-like paintings also celebrate color and pattern with the merging of paint and line.