GALLERY II
EARLY WORKS

Scream of Consciousness

       In 1989, I left Toronto in order to study painting in Vienna. In my portfolio case were the works you see below.
       All reflect my fascination with dreams - their symbols, their archetypes, and their unusual manner of arranging images. At the time, I found the greatest expression of these tendencies in Surrealism.
       But, the more I journeyed into the unconscious, the more my works took a darker turn. I found myself on a quest, not only for the most unusual, but also for the most fear-inspiring of images...

GRAPHIC WORKS

The Sou

THE SOUL

Gala Bastardized

GALA
BASTARDIZED

Crowbar and Egg

THE CROWBAR
AND THE EGG

Mona Lisa Bastardized

MONA LISA
BASTARDIZED

Contortions of Beethoven

CONTORTIONS
OF BEETHOVEN

The Third Birth of Mankind

THE THIRD BIRTH
OF MANKIND

Today I see in these drawings my first stuttering attempts to speak the ancient Image Language. As in dreams, art may arrange images so as to bear a unique message. This is accomplished through an unusual juxtaposition, combination, or displacement of images. My own fascination tended towards 'bastardization" - the corruption of established cultural icons.

The Dance of Death

Dance Among the Ruins

THE DANCE OF DEATH

DANCE AMONG THE RUINS

       When I drew this in 1989, I felt the Apocalyse was approaching. I was obsessed by Gothic Art, thoughts of the Plague and 'the darkness of these times'. One evening, my friends and I visited a cemetary and spontaneously joined hands to dance around a tombstone while singing that age-old rhyme (written at the bottom of the drawing) evocative of the Black Death.
       This painting commemorates that event while evoking the danse macabre theme. All the figures are portraits of my friends and their movements express our relationships to each other.
       One year later, I had left my friends and my life in Toronto to begin wandering through Europe alone.

Like The Dance of Death, this drawing portrays people close to me at the time (in this case, three women with whom I was variously involved). But instead, I was striving to depict joy, light, and the mysteries which these women had evoked. The three figures dance in a circle among the ruins of an ancient Maltese Goddess temple.
At the bottom is a rhyme which came to me spontaneously while drawing:

Around us the ruins
we dance in a ring

We sing in circles
eternally turning...

View a short video clip on the Early Works

Click the middle buttion on the bottom right^
to enter FULL SCREEN mode

SCULPTURES

	SCREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
	A self-portrait in the form of a screaming bust. It's fragmented condition is due to the fact that my friend dropped it. I much prefer it in this state of corruption.
	CREATION / APOCALYPSE
	This image came to me one morning in a half-dreaming state. I saw the Venus of Willendorf - Earth Mother and ancient symbol of creation and fertility - partially consumed by a skull - ancient seal of death and the encroaching Apocalypse.
	AGONY / ECSTASY
	I have remarked over the course of my life how agony and ecstasy bear the same expression. This sculpture was also titled Duality of a Moment because, in it, I have tried to express the sole ambiguous expression of our shared joy and suffering.
	THE NIGHTMARE OF REASON
	In 1978 I had a horrendous nightmare: corpses awoke and arose from beneath the earth - each with its face caved-in, so that only a gaping hole remained in its skull. A number of these corpses seized me and forced me into an open grave - until I woke up. The years of my early twenties were marked by many such nightmares and an unrelenting fascination with the darker side of existence. Each work became an attempt to evoke my greatest fear.
	THE VENUS OF INFERTILITY
	Another darkened vision which complements The Nightmare of Reason. At the time, I was obsessed with the thought that the world would come to an end through a plague of infertility. And an image uprose repeatedly in my dreams to mark that event and prophecy its coming: the Venus of Infertility. Unlike the corpses with hollowed headpieces, she and all of her kind have a cavernous womb.
	TORN
	While living in Vienna in 1990, I experienced a painful break in a relationship. At first, I kept my feelings inside me. But eventually, I had to tear myself open and release the pain. I made this sculpture shortly thereafter - a commemoration of my suffering.

Emergence I

EMERGENCE I

Emergence II

EMERGENCE II