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Painting: Golden Images: Mummy Series 
Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the Apple (closed panels of the St. Joseph | 
Holy Mummy, the Church (polyptych of banners) | 
Holy Mummy, the Church (polyptych of banners) | 
Raising Lazarus (diptych) | 
The Lazari: Six Figures Dealing With Burial (a large 7' high folding Screen, its Greek inscription from Luke 5 printed in the background) | 
The Lazari: Six Figures Dealing With Burial (a large 7' high folding Screen, its Greek inscription from Luke 5 printed in the background) | 
The Lazari: Six Figures Dealing With Burial (a large 7' high folding Screen, its Greek inscription from Luke 5 printed in the background) | 
Rood Screen | 
The Academy Must Teach Us to Harness the Power (triptych) | 
Trinity after Masaccio | 
Trinity Waiting for the Bus (triptych) | 
Burying the Hawk | |
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The golden-fielded mummies arose from my initial inquiry in grad school at NYU in Venice into the
duecento, trecento, and quattrocento retables, found in Italy and most of the rest of Europe.
At first I tried to do figures on a gold ground. I thought the only way to learn to appreciate them
was to try to do them. Coming from years of stained canvases I developed the mummies as a way of putting the
texture of empty canvas with the texture of gold paint. I found the "minimal sculpture" of canvas
texture counterpoised against paint a thrilling new experience. I put away some preconceptions about
the way the world is. I didn't know that that's what I was doing at the time, I thought I was
progressing from the stained-canvas-compulsion that had motivated my work for a few years. I was doing that
but I was also burying so many preconceptions about life, Church, sexuality, love, prayer, politics,
divinity, intercession, devotion, etc. The mummies eventually gave way to the golden shadow paintings,
but I love those mummies; they liberated me from a lot of death in the multitude of things I thought
were necessary consequences of my Faith. I found something deeper, still in the Shadows and later find
that I can see God in so many new places. |
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