Year 2009
Artist's Inspiration: As a fledging artist with limited resources, there is little original material to work with, hence another document of a familial relation. My father deep in slumber, head rested on his convenient pillow which he uses for his siestas. However, on this occasion, the expression that his visage countenanced seems to animate his lifeless body with frightful urgency, as if fending off some imagined disturbance. It affected me profoundly that sleep was not merely a restful pastime but also a redemption activity through which one's suppressed difficult emotions are purged. I felt it necessary to document this visual fact and painted the picture as a still life practice, finishing it from a photo reference.
However, quite strangely, by some mysterious alchemy of oil painting, the finished painting had a different effect from my original intention. It was a glorious beast of Nature, deep in sleep, yet self aware of its power. And by virtue of the painting's perspective, it sets up a predator-prey relationship in the world of imagery, and it had the double effect of transforming the mighty animal into one held in captivity...empowering the stature of the artist in the relationship with the painted. This helped for me to appreciate coiled tension inherent in the picture, like a carousel spinning on the axis of the predator/prey argument, an unexpected endowment, but certainly pleasant for my appreciation of the work.
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