Putting the finishing touches on this new work “The Crowd Never Cheers for Mercy”! Here are a few in progress shots. Look for better images of this one on the main page soon.

The Crowd Never Cheers for Mercy- 56”x48”x7”- Ink, Prismacolor, and gold on paper and foamcore

This piece was created to capture the feeling of the times. The rabbit in the center is leaping forward while his body is unraveling. The brambles around him are formed by soliders, guns, pill bottles, butterflies, barking dogs, etc. They twist and combine, making strange associations with each other. In the brambles we also see the form of a second rabbit. It has already been captured by the growing mass, and its back foot slips under the background and into the artwork’s wound.

The black and white uppermost layer was painstakingly constructed before it was cut open (just this layer took over 50 hours and is really fun to look at up close). It forms the frame and the background of this piece. Because it has been cut, its sides bow inward and expose a fleshy red layer behind it. The hard cut forming the "X" makes a shape like the pyramid of the Eye of Providence, but the all-seeing eye here is missing. Instead, the cold concrete tone of the pyramid is contrasted by a red color that turns deeper red towards the center, like an infection.

It’s a little hard to see but each green section has guilded edges, and all the supports hide images of skeletons.