Silent Scream II

Born Into and Resurrection Scream, 2005

These are both very large and hang on my spare room wall, right next to each other. It was one of those things...I made them for the sake of painting, purely. And so they are painted on the worst materials ever, scraps of already used plastic. I believe that one was a collagraph printmaking plate at some point. I love the way these turned out. I wish I would have made them on sturdier materials, back in the day. Born Into is unable to even hang of its own volition, poor lil thing.

I used acrylic paints on both, and I don't know that the photos quite capture the color-hostility inherent in these pieces, especially the legs. These are such angry, violent paintings, truthfully. But the concept is: Born Into is about being born into this world socially (a scary, hostile society), as well as being about the idea of actual human birth. I don't care what anyone else says, I think birth is a violent process, we come out screaming and red. And I'm tellin ya, if we could remember it all we would be totally traumatized...forever.

Resurrection Scream is about seeing death, seeing a living thing 'cross over' to that other side; that is, the other side of birth. And death too, can be quite violent for some. I felt it was an interesting dichotomy, as they are like bookends to themselves/life.

An interesting tidbit here, is that the words found on the legs piece are actually part of a grave-rubbing that was done on the piece underneath (yeah, I painted over something else, almost entirely). It's a part of the phrase, "born into the spirit world..." that I allowed to show through the plastic, the words almost float through that space now.

Here are some larger versions to look at...