Oils on board. Graphite. Thirty inches by twenty four inches.
An older one that recently was paired with the wood cut below for a show. I was playing with the idea of creating my own saints. I don't know what they would be saints of, not having ever been Catholic for more than a day. I like the ceremonialism that happens in religion. I also like the iconography, and while I'm not a fan of it, I can appreciate the suffering. So I wanted to play with illusions of halos. Like how in graffiti you see crowns floating above things. I thought, why not a helmet? Who is more saintly than a soldier? And what better way to set up a dichotomy between that which is holy and that which is barbaric, than start playing with the idea of combat. I'd like to do a series of these, soldiers as saints, or saints as soldiers. To bring that which was more than human back down to a human level.
When I look at depictions of saints, or Christ, I don't see blood as holy, I see blood as terrifying. And then I see the humanity of it as something to be admired and holy. And by humanity I mean lack of supernatural, people bleed, feel pain, suffer. I think religious imagery can be used as a metaphor or vessel to convey those feelings of pain, or joy.
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