My Work

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

Acrylic Originals

    • 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.


    Share by: