Why atrocities?...
I have always had a strong attraction to art and music with a social or
political message. After trying several different approaches to painting I
decided to incorporate what I saw in the news and everyday wrongs into
the art that I created. The original
Atrocities were painted totally in
primary colors and are therefore
known collectively as"The Primaries".
These deep blue night time scenes
with their bright yellow and red
punches of color dealt with general
occurrences, such as police violence
government oppression, and
suicide bombing.
Another step in the evolution of the Atrocities came in the form of
complex story telling. Confronted with the full stories of atrocious
occurrences, I found myself
stretching long canvases to
paint full stories read from left to
right. I call these paintings "The
Panoramics" for their elongated
dimensions.
With new paintings came new ideas. First the
addition of more colors. Dark night time scenes
gave way to bright daylight. Buildings, clothing,
and vehicles took on their real colors and the
early generalized topics became real
occurrences, such as the raping of Nanking
during World War II, and the dropping of the
atomic bomb on Hiroshima. These are called the
"Single Event" paintings.
Please Note. All Images on this site
are my exclusive property and should not be used for any
purpose without my written permission. To obtain permission,
please e-mail
Another idea came to me in early to mid 2006. My sister had come to
visit and was very excited about being in school for interpreting sign
language. I had also been interested in signing several years prior and
it immediately occurred to me that this could be
a great way to get my point across. I had wanted
to paint something to observe the upcoming
World Aids Day and decided to combine the two
ideas into a three painting series known as
"Signs of Sickness". I was very proud to exhibit
and sell one of them very near this important
day and hope to do more paintings using sign
language in the future.
