Shadows of War
Last Battle
"At last, they did what all the armies dreamed of doing... They began to go home." - Doctor Zhivago
There comes a time after the wars end, after the homecoming, after the parades and the family and friends flitter away back to their home towns after shaking your hand, there comes a time of silence. And that is when your old life and your new collide. The impact is immense. Last Battle captures the feeling of brokenness and emptiness so many of us feel when we return to the real world. Everything is changed, both inside our selves and outside in the world. Last Battle shows a soldier returned from war. His hair has grayed, his sleeve is torn, he is missing one boot, and his sword is chipped. But he is physically whole. He is functional. But he hangs his head, staring into the darkness, even as the light shines down from above.
Inferno
Inferno was the 2 AM product of another sleepless, PTSD-ridden night. Some people are haunted by the things that happened to them. Some are haunted by the things they did. Mostly, I think I fall into the latter category. When I served, I had immense power in my hands and I was quite good at using it. This piece, Inferno speaks to the dark side of power and the acknowledgment of the destruction we leave in the wake of its use. Inferno shows a man walking down the main avenue of a city set ablaze. His form is ambiguous. He is dark, blacker than shadow. He is the cause. The little you can see of his clothing suggests a fire fighter? Did he think he was the solution?
PTSD
A few years ago, I worked at a metal fabrication shop in north east Wisconsin. I was bending metal at my brake press one day when someone dropped a pallet immediately behind me. It sounded like a bomb going off. I had to go home. I was shaky, angry, couldn't focus at all, on the verge of either crying or beating the shit out of someone... I don't know. I went home and painted this piece. A man, naked and vulnerable, hoisted up and spitted on spikes. A simple representation of how I felt. Then I sat in my back yard and drank a bunch of whiskey.
Trio
Trio is an amalgamation of Last Battle, PTSD, and Inferno. I combined the three using a digital art program, blending them together with a digital art pad and stylus. The results are haunting and beautiful.
Self-Imposed
Oftentimes we are our own worst critics and our own worst enemies. I know I am, consistently. It seems there is nothing harder than forgiving yourself. Long after everyone around you, including those you have hurt with your actions or inactions, have shown you grace and forgiven, you continue to allow guilt to hold you prisoner.
Reprieve
We can heal. We can rest. It takes strength to forgive yourself and grant yourself the space to heal. I took this idea from The Lord of the Rings. Do you remember the Ents? The giant tree creatures that swooped in and slaughtered everyone in The Two Towers to save the day? I often imagined them after the battle, finding a peaceful place where they could wash the blood off their hands. Killing, no matter how justified, leaves its scars, and they need to be tended.
Breach
Many vets spend the majority of their energy just trying to 'hold it together'. When I came home from my first Iraq deployment, the people from my childhood who told me their stories from Vietnam staggered me. These were people who I had never known even served, I had never thought of them as soldiers or Marines. Two, in particular, stick out in my mind. The first had been a substitute teacher, a rather normal guy, not the greatest with kids, sort of soft and dull. I never thought anything of him. I ran into him when visiting an old classmate who had become a teacher. After he learned where I had just come from, the flood gates opened. He told me about being a tanker and the sole survivor from his platoon following an ambush by the NVA. I looked at this guy who I had never thought twice about and realized what must have been roiling under the calm surface all of these years. Another man I knew, but apparently, did not really know, a recluse, a quiet guy who avoided people, talked very easily about waking up to seeing what he presumed to be a VC crawling into his tent through the mud. The man stabbed him to death. He was very calm and matter of fact about this. But as he told his story, the calmness left when he spoke about his wife. He told me about getting in an argument with her years later and after she stormed off to the bedroom, he thought to himself how easy it would be to kill her, just like that Viet Cong guerilla. He said the natural ease with which that thought went through him made his blood go cold. He divorced his wife soon after, and pursued a life of solitude.
Both of these guys 'held it together'. This painting, Breach, represents the moment of failure, the moment we can no longer hold, and everything comes crashing down. Breach shows the moment the levies fail and our world is swept away.
Fantasy
Fantasy is a piece that acknowledges the places we invent to escape our pain and the importance of those places. Interrogation experts say that given enough time, it does not matter how tough you think you are, everyone breaks eventually. Soldiers constantly tell themselves to suck it up and drive on. Eventually everyone breaks if the do not allow themselves a reprieve. Fantasy shows a castle in the clouds, a mystical place where the heavy realities of the world cannot touch you. It is a place to rest, a place to wonder, and a place to heal.
Dark Man
Thought I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. As combat vets, we have all walked this path, surrounded by darkness, alone, other than the dark eyes of malevolence that haunt your every step. However deep the shadows and narrow the path, though, we keep marching forward. Like the man said, "If you're going through hell, just keep going."
Angel
I was never one of those people who labeled all service members as 'heroes'. Frankly, I knew a few villains, and quite a few people I'd never invite out for drinks. But I also knew a lot of great people... but there were a few, genuine angels. The ones who would do the right thing, sacrifice everything in order to save another. The guys who didn't ask how much it would cost. The ones who just did.
Amalgamations
Where digital and physical meet
Heterochromia
This 18x24x1.5 inch Amalgamation piece combines an acrylic painting of mine, "Fire and Ice" with a charcoal drawing of a woman's eyes.
Trio
This 18x24x1.5 inch piece isn't for everybody, but for those who speak this language, the image speaks volumes.
Outer Space
This 18x24x1.5 inch Amalgamation piece combines my acrylic paintings of Venus, Mars, and Mercury, with a digitally painted space background. Perfect for those who look to the sky and wonder.
Outer Planets
This 18x24x1.5 inch Amalgamation piece combines my acrylic paintings of Jupiter and Saturn with a digitally painted Uranus, Neptune, and space background. Perfect for those who look to the sky and wonder.
Kaleidoscope
This 18x24x1.5 inch Amalgamation piece takes one of my most popular paintings, 'Butterflies' and turns it on its head to create a beautiful picture reminiscent of a stained glass window.
In the Eye of the Giant
Some believe the sky is blue because we live inside the eye of a blue-eyed giant- Oberyn Martell- GoT
24x18x1.5
Acrylic Originals
Cloudy Fen
16x20
Original acrylic on stretched canvas. I love it. You can't have it.
Bayou
14x18 Acrylic on stretched canvas
Sitting on the dock of the bay, watching my bobber dip and play. Beautiful pinks, oranges and golds take you away to those vacation days and make the real world disappear.iption.
Capital at Night
16x20 Acrylic on stretched canvas.
Independence day in Madison, Wisconsin! The nation's flag flying proudly over the capital as seen from Lake Monona. Collect this one of a kind piece to celebrate your love of America and your home town!
Memorial Day
18 x 24 x .75 Acrylic on stretched canvas
As a combat veteran, days such as Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Patriot Day mean a great deal to me. For me, it is not flag waving and chants of USA, though. They are somber days, days of remembrance for the people who have died in service or risked death in service to us
City Aflame
18 x 24 x .75 Acrylic on stretched canvas
As a combat veteran, days such as Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Patriot Day mean a great deal to me. For me, it is not flag waving and chants of USA, though. They are somber days, days of remembrance for the people who have died in service or risked death in service to us.
City Reborn
18 x 24 x .75 Acrylic on stretched canvas
As a combat veteran, days such as Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Patriot Day mean a great deal to me. For me, it is not flag waving and chants of USA, though. They are somber days, days of remembrance for the people who have died in service or risked death in service to us.
Terraform
18 x 24 x .75 Acrylic on stretched canvas
I often wonder about the myriad of other worlds that must be out there somewhere in the cosmos, beyond the meager reach of human hands. I imagined a journey to one such place and painted the world in which I found myself. The result is my piece, Terraform, a wonderful piece that straddles the borders between sci-fi, fantasy, and my own color-bomb genre.
Dark Castle
18x24 Acrylic and Gouache on stretched canvas.
The sun falls and the night sky fills with the ominous beat of dragon wings. What horror awaits these brave adventurers? Await the relief of dawn or enter the castle under cover of night?
Last Stand
20x20 Acrylic on stretched canvas.
As a boy he dreamt of shining mail and meeting the enemy charge with sword in hand.
Duality
10x20 Acrylic on stretched canvas.
The duality of man. Fire and ice. Serenity and rage.
Breach
24 x 18 x .75 Original Acrylic on stretched canvas.
We've all been there. We've held the flood back with all of our strength, all of our will power. Held it until all we could see was the red pain behind our eyelids and all we could hear was the blood rushing in our ears. When it becomes all-consuming and the entire world fades back behind the roar of you just trying to hold that wall. And then it breaks, everything comes crashing down
Lust
18 x 24 x .75 Acrylic on stretched canvas
Not every painting is meant for the living room.
Martyr
16x20 Acrylic on stretched canvas statement piece.
In June of 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the the 1973 landmark case Roe v Wade. I began this piece the day after the decision was made. The painting features a bleeding pregnant woman being crucified. Both the flag and the cross are present to symbolize the pride of the groups killing the woman. The name 'Martyr' is used tongue in cheek as martyrs are people who go to death wilingly in sacrifice to a greater cause. But there is no consent here. The woman is being put to forcibly put to death in the same manner as the man so many who wear the flag and carry the cross claim to revere. It is meant to show their shame, their hypocricy, and their proud brutality.
Butterflies
18x24x.75 Acrylic on stretched canvas.
People constantly say things like, “I don’t know why bad things always happen to good people.”
Well, I bet if you stopped to really think about it, you’d realize that you do. The good ones always stick around too long. Whatever is going bad, they try to stick things out. They sacrifice themselves to attempt to salvage the situation. The weak ones, the selfish ones, they cut and run as soon as the shadow of trouble appears. Or, worse, they push the people close to them into the path of the coming calamity.
The good are constantly injured, constantly hurt, and sadly, often take on the destructive traits of the people who hurt them, to protect themselves from future pain. But the best people... the best absorb the pain, and whether they make peace with it or not, refuse to deflect that pain to the world around them. On the contrary, they take their pain and use it to reinforce their purpose to be a force of love, a force of good, of healing and comfort, to the world around them.
'Butterflies' is dedicated to all such people. All too often, their hurts consume their vision and it is all they can see. They look in the mirror and only see diminished versions of their former selves. They are unable to see who they really are. They do not see the light they shed on the rest of the world, the inspiration that their kindness, compassion, and love in the face of pain provides. 'Butterflies' is simply a mirror for those people. They are the light, they are the vibrant colors of the Earth, they are the rebirth, the phoenix rising, the butterfly from the cocoon. They are the heart, the life-blood of human-kind.
And they deserve to know it.
Archival Quality Giclee Prints
Archival Quality Giclee Prints are reproductions of my original work which meet the highest quality standards of the fine art community. These prints are composed of thick Somerset Velvet paper and special inks which combine to provide color-dense, heavily saturated images that do not fade over time. Giclee Prints are designed to be framed and hung behind glass.
Butterflies-Print
18x24 Archival Quality Giclee Print on Somerset Velvet Paper
All prints are 18x24 inch images surrounded by 1 inch white margins. They are designed to be matted to 18x24 inches.
The One Tree- Print
18x24 Archival Quality Giclee Print on Somerset Velvet Paper
All prints are 18x24 inch images surrounded by 1 inch white margins. They are designed to be matted to 18x24 inches.
Magic Moonrise-Print
Magic Moonrise is truly a magical piece and one of my favorites. The colors are rich, mystical, and exude a sense of wonder. Deep layered azure on verdant greens and golds, the reflection of the moon on the water is beautiful to behold. This piece is perfect to bring calm and serenity any room in the house.
Print is 18x24 inches, plus a one inch white border around it for a total size of 20x26 inches.
Fire Sunset-Print
Fire Sunset is a painting of beauty, intensity, and passion. The mix of warm, rich colors and the sun reflecting off the ocean ripples makes for a stunning piece the goes great in any living room, bed room, or any other place you want to bring the warm vitality of life.
18x24 inch image with a 1 inch white border bringing the total dimension to 20x26.
Lust-Print
Lust- Not every painting is meant for the living room.
18x24 inch image with a 1 inch white border bringing the total dimension to 20x26.