An apocalyptic vision has dominated my work since I began to move, early in the 80s, beyond the
influence of the artists I admired and toward a more personal, indigenous expression. First in
painting, then in printmaking, I began to search through my always vivid dream life for images that
would carry the sense that was growing in me that our already far from ideal world is careening
toward a sinister denouement.
THE GIFT OF FIRE was the first in a series of color etchings in which I sought to encapsulate
the feelings of unease, if not outright alarm, that trouble many of us today.
THE GIFT OF FIRE
etching -- 18"x24"
In the past dozen years, I have moved into mixed media printmaking, combining etching with oil monotype to create a series dealing with issues suggested by the pervasive societal violence and environmental irresponsibility of our time.
The mixed media series have formed themselves into a quartet in which existential concerns are extended
both forward and backward in time, and circle about the
crux of what it is to be human, with its simultaneous
implications of both the demonic and the angelic.
The most recent series in the quartet of series, entitled THE SEVENTH CIRCLE, had its genesis in a reading
of the INFERNO by Dante. In this epic poem, the seventh is
the circle of the Wasters, the destroyers of substance,
hope, and even life itself (a region of the circle is called
the Wood of the Suicides). Absorbing the dramatic
tension implicit in this poetic classic, I have projected it
visually, exploring with figurative imagery in an abstract
context ramifications of this terrible circle that are
certainly more potent today even than in Dante's violent
time.