“Romance No.8 ”

The original center (girl with the gun) is from my other favourite Jan Saudek photo that's untitled. I modified her, of course, as well as built up an immense stage around her.

Lots of things about this is self-explanatory, and the main clue to figuring it out is paying a lot of attention to the birdcage area. One can easily see the flow of it, the wind itself, and what appears to be necessarily juxtaposed and/or paradoxial really isn't in conflict at all. Westerners are used to reading and viewing everything left to right, this one forces one to reverse one's usual manner of following along more than once, and for good reason. The details are all fragments that can be read both ways, and once 'read-over,' they start becoming more cohesive and clear to their overall relaton. There is a bit of a story here, and the more one fixates on details that seem accidental, one will find certain shadows, inconsistencies, texture changes, lighting and 'slight mistakes' are very much intentional, and like a lucid dream in logic and delivery. Fear of the future, be it stolen and/or unshakable, but employing a Cassandra complex. Optimism, Pessimism. Tyranny, Unwanted Submission. Elegance, Viscera. Bondage, Release. Wailing, Silence. Hope, Dread. Exhaustion, Invigoration. In a sense, a melodramatic daydream of change.

As in a Tarot deck, the 'Death' card doesn't always mean a negative thing.

Of course, there's some very personal markers in here that I won't go into, but certain indiviuals would simply find themselves privvy to the 'beginning' of said story, as it is painted.

This was painted to two songs, not dissimilar to each other, to me : Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto #1, and Diamanda Galas' version of 'Gloomy Sunday.'

This painting is a whimsical slow inhale and even slower exhale, do so when considering it in detail. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, Exhale.