"Spirit of Lust" Painting

I grew up in Appalachia - home of the snake-handling, venom drinking, “Big Tent” Pentecostal churches. These extremes shaped my worldview and I drew similarities between religious dogma and Nazism and even blind belief in scientific progress - the Nazi and human sacrifice, the scientist and his human experiment. Years passed and I understood the serpent as the "Death Principle", that holding the snake is proving faith by tempting fate. In many cultures death is a four-legged beast, a bird of prey, and a serpent that combine into a dragon. Did our monsters and demons evolve alongside us as the predators, diseases and natural disasters that we face? Have we now become them?

My work reflects these monsters and myths. I see them as the fears of our time - fears of climate change, decades of war, corrupt government, pandemics and culture wars. Painted in a realistic manner, you can see demons made of black plastic and fleshy teeth. Animal parts and manufactured materials twist together into monsters of the problems that we have made for ourselves. They are terrifying, confronting, and confusing. There is no hope of a way out found here, only the Devil come for his due.