Fenton describes people throwing rocks at Jews whom they have been taught to hate. In the process of their actions, they fracture the world, a world in which the highest moral standards are the bulwark against destruction. Even so, the Jews fracture as easily as the world. The weeping prophet Jeremiah witnesses all from his vantage point between the layers of the broken world.
Tag: painting
Bicycle Accident
People gather at the Jefferson Memorial. It is a place that unites Americans, and yet the figures in this painting function as individuals or small groups that are oblivious to the commonality of all, even to the bicycle accident off to their right.
Sunday Drive through the Hood
Two very different worlds exist and are separated, in this case, by a car door. Fear, distrust, intimidation, alienation, survival of the fittest, and ownership of turf are words which come to mind when one thinks about these co-existing but separate provinces.
CEO
Fenton portrays a Chief Executive Officer of a major corporation (Enron) making decisions which affect the lives of countless others. The CEO’s decisions are based on personal and corporate greed. Fenton compares the corporate leader to a sleazy hot dog vendor. Potential customers should think twice before purchasing anything from this CEO/vendor.
The Selling of the Golden Calf
In Exodus, the golden calf was a false god created by the Israelites while Moses was on top of Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments. As punishment for such idol worship, the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years. In this painting, Fenton draws a parallel between the Biblical golden calf and the idolatry created and encouraged by contemporary consumerism, leading to the metaphoric desert of our own making. Fenton references Rembrandt’s Moses with the Table of the Law as a contemporary ghost, smashing the tablets in reaction to our new idolatry.
Akedah- Ultimate Choice
Description not provided.
Bird House
The genesis for this painting was sparked by the artist’s visit to his daughter’s apartment in New York City. Gazing out from her balcony, he constructed imaginary life stories unraveling on the stacked balconies in front of him. All the balconies suggest separate existential lives, which the pigeons have the clearest view.
Akedah-The Binding of Isaac
The Binding of Isaac (Akedah) found in Genesis is retold as a contemporary story of popular culture’s sacrifices of children. Each panel dramatizes the moment in which the angel stops Abraham from sacrificing his son. God provides a sacrificial ram as a substitute for Isaac. A metaphoric ram and other visual metaphors are used in each panel to help dramatize and draw parallels from the Biblical story to the present.
The Muse pays a visit and stops All the Clocks and Watches
Description not provided.
The Life and Times of M. Stanley
Description not provided.