Global events of recent years, war, environmental disaster, global warming, economic collapse, and our increasing awareness through global media of widespread poverty, preventable disease, and starvation affecting millions of people worldwide, especially children, are our cultural 'nightmares' ("Les cauchemars")--the 'darkness' which forms the context for this body of work. As scientists seriously plan how to actualize human landings on Mars, the red planet, will we take our garbage, our disease, our warfare and our environmental poisoning with us to this new world? Or can we find some way to live in peace, with universal healthcare, without gluttony and vast economic disparity? The human race is weighed down by these nightmares. Will we find the common will, the determination (the 'fire-in-the-belly') to work for global solutions for these problems, and find our way out of darkness to the light of environmental and political healing. "Les cauchemars" began as an angry response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast, but with the desire to fight for healing of our waters and environment. Much of the work in this portfolio reflects this dichotomy. The "Solar Series" paintings (2003-2006) were in response to solar flares in 2003 which caused widespread blackouts on the East Coast. Much of my work is a response to visiting Iguacu Falls, Argentina, the widest series of waterfalls in the world, at the confluence of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. It is one of the most magnificently beautiful places in all the world, with the thunderous roar of the falls, and prisms of color--rainbows in the mist--everywhere you look. It has been described as the 'closest thing to heaven on earth.' Yet it too has been subject to severe drought and a two-thirds reduction of the flow of the falls in 2008 due to global warming. Its great beauty is in stark contrast to its bloody history of colonization and the near-decimation of the indigenous Guarani people in the mid-18th century by colonialist forces of the Portuguese and Spanish monarchy and Rome. "Iguacu Falls: the River is Red" is a response to the vast multi-colored beauty of the falls, the fact that iron in the water makes the river basin a bright red-orange, and a reference to its bloody history. The "Vapor Series" of 2012 are visual metaphors for trying to pull ourselves as a society out of darkness, to raise ourselves up to hope and healing.
“Les cauchemars (Fire-in-the-Belly)”
“Ebb & Flow”
“Solar Series #3”
“Solar Series #6”
“Solar Series #5”
“Untitled Abstraction”
“Iguacu Falls, The River is Red”
“Red Vapor (Captured Light)”
“White Vapor”
“Iguacu Falls Vapor”
