"Exit Wounds": In a crime scene or a tragedy, the exit wound is the larger, more destructive, devastating wound created by a projectile such as a bullet leaving the body. I thought of this, and of other wounds made by things and people when they leave us. I thought of when I have felt this loss, this wound, and this hole in me.
I wanted to illustrate that pain and experience in this piece. On this large rusted ornate metal, painted in oil are wounded hands releasing an also injured blackbird, feathers floating down along with a shell casing from a bullet having been fired, though one is not sure from or into whom. The hands are in an almost praying position, as if even while releasing, still pleading: please don’t leave.
The second painting, "Voices," illustrates the experience of 8% who have auditory hallucinations, including myself, the artist. The woman is blindfolded, and cannot see the source of the voices on the other end of the line of the toy telephone (tin can and red string) that she holds to her ear. Listening, head tilted slightly upward because she wonders at times if they come from God. The way her skin is done is because she feels fragmented by this. If examined closely, I plucked a hair from my own head dipped it in paint, and laid it on the canvas several times to create some details, thus putting pieces of myself into this painting.
