I've never done an overt self-portrait in my work before. That's me, wiping away a tear, crying for my friend Joe Kelly. I modeled the figure on one of “The Mourners,” a collection of 15th century alabaster tomb sculptures from France that I saw a couple of years ago at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
As I was carving the last reduction for this piece, I took a break to get a beverage, and when I walked past the bathroom I saw this:
I think Ty The Yellow Lab wanted his portrait in this print, too.
Added later: Friends on Facebook have suggested that Ty may have been trying to hide out after surreptitiously imbibing from the bowl. Quite possible.
3 comments:
A very powerful and provocative piece, (with or without the dog).
The use of the negative space/Christ silhouette with the names showing through is very moving.
It is very "beautiful" too which is unsettling.
Works and resonates on so many levels.
Good, good work.
Thank you, Andrew. I struggled with the "beautiful" part, and for a while I considered adding blood somehow, but it all looked too forced and tawdry. So I decided to let it be beautiful, sort of like how war memorials are treated. Thanks for commenting about that.
Stunning, powerful piece. I think you made the right choice in keeping it "beautiful". The pain of loss wouldn't hurt if there wasn't so much love and beauty that came before it.
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