The Traveler
A large canvas painted in early 2010. It’s an allegory based upon the tarot Fool. There’s a large file hidden behind this small copy, feel free to download it for your personal pleasure, but not for any commercial use.
Tarot Cards
On an alchemical note, here are three tarot card images that I have completed in recent weeks. I’ve left a large image behind each of them.
Justice
Justice and Temperance are two of the four cardinal virtues repeatedly depicted in the Renaissance, finding their way into the Tarot in its early form as a neo-platonic emblem deck. In my version of the image Justice stands upon the monad, the symbol of the Pythagorean divine, while around her the ground is icy and fragile. One hand is raised to the heavens while the other is lowered toward the ground. Her palms are pierced by a line which descends from the sky to her upraised hand, then descends from her other hand where it suspends a balance made of five spheres, representing cosmic justice; this is not the justice of the law court, but the justice of the order of the universe, that as things are above, so they are below. The wounds in her hands and feet correspond to the stigmata of the avatar Christ, suggesting that divine Justice is manifested here on earth. In alchemical terms she raises the notion that the balance of opposites can result in the divine – solve et coagula.
Temperance
Posed upon the golden sphere of the monad, Temperance is the winged messenger between the heavens and the earth, bringing the divine into the world. She is associated with the water bearer to the gods, the beautiful Ganymede, whose moon floats above her head. Here we see the combination of the alchemical Salt and Sulphur in perfect balance, Temperance’s gaze turned away from the task of pouring because her work is effortless and harmonious with the movement of the universe.
Death
In alchemical symbolism the reaper and other images of death, beheading and blackness usually stand for the nigredo phase of the work, when the material is allowed to blacken in order to separate out the alchemical Salt and the Sulphur (not to be mistaken for our present day understanding of the chemicals salt and sulphur) This part of the process leaves the impure remains of the material behind when the salt and sulphur are separated by heating and distillation, so although it may appear to be destructive, the results are good, being the production of the purified essence of the material.
Guard 24″ x 36″, Oil on panel
An allegory for the church militant, standing guard and preventing access to the tomb.
Invitation to a lynching 61″ x 70″. Oil on Canvas
The painting took seven years to finish. You can follow the saga of its completion and display here on the Gilded Raven blog.
Three Kinds of Betrayal b48″ x 72″ Oil on Canvas
Three Kinds of Betrayal is about different forms of treachery: here are the betrayals of the lie, of indifference and of the Judas kiss.
Bombers 48″ x 84″, Oil on Canvas
is loaded with symbolism stemming from hermetic philosophy. The hermit (an archetype found in the Tarot in a different guise) lives in the desert. He understands the mystery of the Emerald Tablet, “as above, so below” and sits between the two pillars that symbolize the threshold of initiation. He holds the rod of duality that connects heaven and earth and sits upon a yin yang, a symbol of the trinity as it was described by Pythagoras.
Amelia Beheads the Alchemical King 48″ x 72″ Oil on Canvas
The alchemical Queen has beheaded the King and now reaches for his purified essence. The calcination is complete.
The Reluctant Death of Modernism 68″ x 61″, Oil on Canvas
The crushed can at bottom left is Andy Warhol’s Campbell’ Soup can, an icon of the twentieth century. The muse stands beside it, pregnant and waiting to give birth to a new era.
Fama 48″ x 84″, Oil on Canvas, The alchemical King and Queen meet and exchange gifts. The King holds his feminine side, symbolized as a bowl, while the Queen holds her masculine solar cross. On the stone altar lie a rod, cup, coins and a knife; the suits of the tarot deck.
I made a large painting of the “Baptism of Christ” that can be seen at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Balboa Blvd, Granada Hills, CA 91344. I’ve been unable to take good quality photographs of the painting to date because the lighting in the church reflects off the surface of the painting, making it very difficult to capture. However, there’s an image driven blog page describing the process of making the piece here. It’s painted in Oils over a canvas stretched onto a large panel, eight feet high by four feet wide.
I made these three study paintings during a period of transformation in my life, I was about to leave a job at a very conservative College to move to a liberal University where I knew I would be much happier. To me the people in the paintings are chrysalises waiting for the moment to waken.
Boxing Jennifer is a painting I made for Jennifer Lynch, who I’ve always been fond of. She has turned her life around recently, having just completed a new film called Surveillance which debuted at Cannes this year. Awesome!
I’ve included the painting here because even though I made this before I got really deeply into the study of alchemy, it shows a woman going through an alchemical transformation.
