hoosing
to paint figures at life-size, I want to engage the viewer intimately
with the narrative. Thus, my paintings are large though my pencil and
oil studies are small. I am interested in the transformative possibilities
of deconstructing classical or mainstream spiritual representations
so one can see that how God is constructed, so is the political power
that impacts the human condition. My goal is to expose the nihilistic
influence of religion on individual freedom and the human condition
through its preponderance for dualism, the good versus bad framework
that’s used to support popular morality and subsequent legislation.
In other words, as God is defined, so is our reality and so are our
laws.
My first focus is Christianity, which has for thousands of years, reflected
the institutional face of a patriarchal paradigm and a modern delusion
that church and state are separate. The Bible, exploited as a political
weapon, turns up in our modern courtrooms — a New Jersey Superior
Court judge cites passages from Sodom and Gomorrah in his November,
1995 legal decision to dismiss an anti-gay discrimination case. In local
Cobb County, the Christian right hammered its “family values”
policy into a 1993 government resolution that ultimately drove away
the county’s Olympic venue. For a cultural construct, look to the
Vatican. Pope John Paul II reiterates male supremacy as an infallible
doctrine by banning female priests. These are but a few examples. Numerous
biblical references and a wealth of Renaissance art lend me a cache
of images for activism.
The
issues in my art range from gay and lesbian to feminism and war. In
The Legacy of Abraham‚ I examine a
religion of self-sacrifice and obedience, a military or master-slave
paradigm. With Judas Kiss, The
Crucifixion of Christ, and Madonna, Lover
& Son, I use a gay narrative to get at the bigger issue of sexuality
and spirituality. Surely, society has created the dualistic problem
of sex and sin, good and evil, not a divine intelligence. In The
Raped Virgin, The Resurrection and
The Healing Of Our Mother, my narrative
embraces the feminist viewpoint.
Paradoxically, America was founded by a people seeking freedom from
religious persecution. Today, its Old World roots are showing. Mainstream
religions shape the fundamental quality of life permeating every aspect,
from prayer in schools to political action. Though arguably, the quality
of life is at best in America, we have no more New World on this planet
to escape religious tyranny. The frontier to be transformed is now inward,
in the mythologies, the belief systems of the paradigm. This is where
I have aimed my art.
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