laughter, an aside to the Death retrospective

The name of this painting is Element, which is what the two images have in common: laughter. On the left Kali is dancing & laughing in a bombed synagogue in Istanbul. The reference was a terroist attack which had been written up in the New York Times Magazine decades ago. On the right a Tibetan monk is laughing at the moon. My inspiration for that was a Japanese brush painting. I had a postcard of it, although that monk was not Tibetan nor in the Himilayas. I painted them seperately, knowing that I would frame them together. But I didn't have them side by side when I worked on them--each one went up on the wall by itself. So when I had them edge to edge I was surprised that the blue-white light coming in the broken wall of the synagogue continued in the monk painting as moonlight, traveling in the same path down the mountainside.
Magic, isn't it great? Makes you laugh.

the painter's joke/ Death retrospective continues

Raining color and rhinestones beneath that one, extravagant wing, and trailing the vapor of illusion--I'd say he does a pretty good impression of an artist. Always, in every piece I've done, even the most intense, there is the sense of laughter. Not everyone else sees that--but I know its there and without it the colors won't take the light the same way.