Origin 1977-79

After experimenting with airbrush techniques on ‘Sports,’ 1976, I returned to an earlier theme of an animation I had made in college, “The Birth of a Seed.” I observed a chipped crystal ball where I could see “the/our” world in that universe. This perception of clarity was the source of a new artistic journey. The sphere became synonymous with the “wholeness” of the planet, as well as of a person. I wanted to create a narrative series of paintings that would visually describe “origins” culminating in man. The paintings are linked by the mastery of depicting a sensory vision containing a magical realism. The end painting of the sequence, the stark portrait of “Man and the Crowd,” with its vacant eyes, reminds us that despite our individuality we are still part of a crowd. Innocence has been replaced with knowledge as the hand has slowly disappeared, leaving the last 4 images, with similar textured traces, as proof of life on earth.

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