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This image is loosely based on an event, and on a poem by Seamus Heaney. The two figures represent the physicist Alan Gent of the University of Akron, whose research after the tragic crash of the Space Shuttle Columbia led to solving the problem; and the astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who is presenting him with an award for his pioneering and original work. As an artist I feel an affinity to the research scientist in that both scientist and artist often find themselves pushing into new territory with their research. I see these individuals as heroes of a sort, and deserving of the recognition traditionally bestowed on heroic figures by an homage in artwork.
Seamus Heaney's poem The Railway Children touches on the spirit and exhilaration of youth, which in turn nurtures the concept of hope. As he describes the children gazing down miles of railway track, imagining they could become "so infintessimally scaled" that they could travel down the adjacent telegraph wires, Heaney writes: "(We...thought) We could stream through the eye of a needle." In my view this positive allusion to the capacity of the human spirit, which allows us to dream and to believe in ourselves and others, is also worthy of an icon. In combining ideas presented in this poem with an event involving a triumph of research, I was trying to link imaginative daydreams of childhood to the directed searches we undertake in later life.Label
This painting started with a wet-into-wet marbling technique on raw canvas. The layout was then drawn with pencil and constructed not unlike my intaglios; that is, by isolating techniques and allowing them to be read in isolation and as an overall design at the same time. There are hand-painted passages, airbrushed passages, glazes, spontaneous marks and rather tight, controlled marks. Framed by the confining rectilinear boxes, the elements of the composition combine to give it a kind of inertia, as if it were about to fly apart at any instant. Some of the marks and images break the boxes for that reason -- to loosen the otherwise "tight" aspect of the picture's construction.
The paints I have used are Winsor and Newton Artist's Acrylics and Rowney Artist's Acrylics. Some of the paints contain mica, a non-fading, permanent material which imparts a slight sparkle to the surfaces. This technique was borrowed from Japanese woodblock printers who often use mica as a decorative element in their prints. The colored pencils used are Derwent Artist's pencils which are permanent and lightfast. The small black lines are done with a rapidograph and Pelikan Special Black ink which is permanent, lightfast and waterproof. Some of the linear elements are done with acrylic paint ejected through a hypodermic syringe.
This painting is supported with a lightweight panel behind the canvas to allow for vigorous work while it was made and to prevent flexing of the drawn marks when it was completed.