Landscapes

I was thinking about what New York City might look like hundreds of years into the future. To the right you can see a kind of repetition of the Statue of Liberty in abstracted forms. I think it can be read both ways: as a post-apocatyptic vision, or a way that the relics of the past get absorbed into the natural landscape.

I wanted to depict the most fundamental expression of The State. The simple naive purity of the trees, grass, hills and mountains, in contrast to the black fence. And although it is designed somewhat elegantly, it draws the line, creating a border, enclosing the natural environment. The eye shapes of the wrought iron fence design are meant to express the surveillance function of the state. There is however an open gate. The gate is in fact, missing.

When I was a member of The Living Theatre company, we worked on a collective creation about the social contract and domination and submission, based on the Six Houses of Bondage described by Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch (from whom the word Masochism is taken). The Six Houses are Money, Property, The State, War, Love and Death. I am working on a series of paintings to express each of those Houses. This is an expression of The House of Money from that cycle of plays.

When I was a member of The Living Theatre company, we worked on a collective creation about the social contract and domination and submission, based on the Six Houses of Bondage described by Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch (from whom the word Masochism is taken). The Six Houses are Money, Property, The State, War, Love and Death. I am working on a series of paintings to express each of those Houses. This is an expression of The House of Death from that cycle of plays.

Like most people these days I have been watching the news and astonished at the regression from a sophisticated sense of politic and civic understanding, to a dangerous reduction of seeing the "other", or people one doesn't agree with as an enemy rather than a person to engage in civil discourse, compromise and progress. People tend to gather around a single idea or person and lose their sense of humanity. It's alarming. Never seen it this bad before HERE in the land of enlightened freedom. So this image came to mind. ...

Four figures contemplating the emptiness of their existence. .

I painted this on the full moon. I was thinking of how big the moon looks when it's first appearing on the horizon, Especially in the Fall. The "Harvest Moon" always looks huge compared to full moon in other months. I feel like the mysterious containers along the route of this long stretch of highway adds to the strange loneliness of the place. And the red and orange colors of the light underscore how strange the moonlight can play on reflections especially on a full moon.

This painting started out as an exercise in simple perspective and I got drawn into the character of this lonely empty station house probably in a small town railroad station. I also experimented with the feeling of the colors of light at night in this desolate place.

My partner Gia traveled to Varanasi, India where she had a number of profound adventures. Among them was meeting White Baba, with whom she traveled to sacred locations of the Nagas. They also visited the temple at the birthplace of The Buddha. Here they are pictured in front of the temple conversing. It is a teaching. I painted this as an expression of Gia's recounting of their meetings.

I wanted to give the feeling of the humility of humanity in the face nature as a gigantic power. What is the boat doing there. So lonely. It's empty. Where is the sailor?