A Question of Parity

The balance of good verses evil is an old tale in art. This digital art was inspired by earlier work I did in 2020-ish, but centers on the question of what happens when the scales tip, the ideal evaporates, and the cogs begin to question their place in the machine.  A I’ve said, there is … Read more

The Wrong Side of Heaven

What if angels don’t give a damn about us? What if we’re trying to be good for a god for whom we are no better than ants? What if we’re condemned to our fate by our imperfect nature? What if this is god’s greatest irony, a creation followed by casting off, like an artist doing … Read more

Pythia – Apollo Calling

It’s another boring Tuesday. Pythia, High Priestess of the Oracle of Delphi, is going about her daily rituals to a god she’s never actually seen or heard. Suddenly, a beam of light and booming voice take her by surprise. Apollo is calling. This is an attempt to capture that moment. Behind the scenes. I’ve a … Read more

09:23 – The Rise of Social Media

It was inspired initially by the photo of the first victim of #Vecna in #strangerthings, but then expanded to take on #social #media. I hate explaining this stuff. I hope it resonates on it’s own, because it’s pretentious otherwise. There’s no process, just dumping my brain into 1’s and 0’s.

Parity Lost

A surreal painting titled "Parity Lost" features a blue-skinned figure with dark wings kneeling and gazing into a large vessel. A woman with curly hair peers out from the vessel, swathed in pink fabric and surrounded by trailing vines. Abstract pink clouds form the ethereal background.

“Everyone knew the war would one day end. It had raged for eons since Lucifer decided he would rather own his house than pay rent. The sides of light and darkness had fought themselves to a standstill. “If only God’s pets could see the ethereal ruin that lay in between their Starbucks and obsession with the Kardashians,” most angels mused to themselves as the conflict went on.   

What no one expected, was for the war to end today. No one foresaw that the strongest of the Angels would exercise her free will, just as Lucifer had at the beginning of time. She had grown weary of the routine, the constant pressure of vigilance, of maintaining the balance, and had decided to do something about it. She would become what God loved most – human.
As her wings relented under the blade, tremors shook the ethereal, summoning Lucifer to her side. He loved her, this angel, his greatest threat. He had held her in greater esteem than those braggarts Michael and Gabriel. She, who had fought him to an aeons-long standstill, had earned his respect, and worse, corrupted the purity of his hate with love, however selfish.

She had chosen to become mortal, a contemptible, imperfect, creature that had what all angels desired. Now, the balance had shifted. He had loathed the favorites of God, he had achieved self-actualization through his torment of them – and now she was one of them! Could he go on destroying them? His heart sank at the only conclusion he could reach. The war was over.”

Mary and the Last Sinner

A painting of Mary with long curly hair wearing a pink dress with ruffles, and a halo above her head. She faces a large, menacing purple dragon with glowing yellow eyes and sharp teeth, emerging from dark, swirling shadows behind her. The scene captures the tense moment from "Mary and the Last Sinner.

I had an entire long post ready to go but thanks to an app crash, I’ll give you the highlights.

I wasn’t going to share this painting. I didn’t think it worthy, but people started to like it, so, here we are.

There’s two themes going on here. First, there’s a piece of Papayrus at Harvard (this is not the Dan Brown / Da Vinci Code angle) that has a line where Jesus calls Mary Magdalene “my Wife”. Imagine that? Going from fallen prostitute to the equal (or better than, in the words of Paul) of Jesus. The documentary I watched “The Gospel of Mary“, started the ball rolling on this idea. I was originally going to paint just her.

As an aside, and from a historical perspective since I’m not religious (there’s a long story involving an ex-wife that caused me to be like the hit R.E.M song with God), I’m fascinated by what got in the Bible, what got left out (Gnosticism, Council of Nicea, etc.), and the power-plays that took place to put down Mary (labeling her a prostitute). So painting this had a lot to do with egalité, as the French would say.

Next I came across a Mark Twain quote that made me pause:

“But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

I thought, “who better to bring the word of God to the first and last sinner?” So I had Mary confronting the great vvrym and closing the loop on this Christianity thing – a denouement of sorts, but without the 80’s soundtrack.

The painting had a working title of “Prom Dress Mary and the Pompadour (fixed) Dragon“. That title should explain why I wasn’t going to post it at first. Anyway, here it is.