"Night-time sharpens,
heightens each sensation.
Darkness stirs and
wakes imagination.
Silently the senses
abandon their defences.....
Slowly, gently...
night unfurls its splendour.
Grasp it, sense it...
tremulous and tender.
Turn your face away
from the garish light of day
and listen to
the music of the night.....
Close your eyes
and surrender
to your darkest dreams!"
(Phantom Of The Opera, 2004)
UP FROM THE ASHES, 5' X 4'
MY WEBSITE
On Nov 2 1980, I got the holy shit kicked out of me when my car hit a train. After emerging from a coma, I had to face certain facts....my face was ravaged from the collision, my hands and body were permanently paralyzed and I would face a lifetime of countless surgeries, isolation and pain. And so, I did the only thing I could....I embraced my destiny as a gimp and became an artist.
I created
A VISUAL DIARY
that documented my new life as a gimp, and my painting turned obsessively to self-portraits. Visually, I glorified my role as the heroic martyr, faithfully recording my experiences on canvas.
My passion is Art History, especially the religious and expressive iconography of the Great Masters from the Renaissance to sixteenth and seventeenth century Mannerist and Baroque periods, as well as the Surrealist movement. Owing allegiance to no one particular art movement, it was from within the conceptual framework of all these periods that the visual genesis of my style was determined.
I have an endless fascination with anything from old "Freak Show" circus banners to anatomical images to classical, religious, and contemporary icons. I also have a penchant for the morbid ...scars and blood are evident in the work and I relish depicting myself in various degrees of pain.....it's cathartic. The result is a pictorial blend of exaggerated gestural images, improbable hand signals, artificial color, botanical references, symbolic iconography, anatomical anomalies, illusionistic "uncertainty" and a suspension of time, all of which I try to visually depict within a single spatial reality.
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My art in Italy
