Menowar again

This is just to announce that the painting "Men O' War" (or even "Menowar")-- also just published in Sow's Ear Poetry Review -- has been accepted for the Limner Gallery "Emerging Artists" show in March (from the 7th to the 28th) 2009. Below is the piece:


Menowar, 2007, acrylic on plywood, 18" x 30".

I'd also like to mention that there is another painting of this subject, begun before but finished after the one above -- I didn't like the original version, but later returned & "fixed it":


Menowar Variant B, 2007, acrylic on plywood, 18" x 30".

The painting was done for possible inclusion in the Museum on the Seam's traveling "Coexistence" project. It is unclear whether the piece (in digitally altered form, printed on a large banner) has been or will be exhibited on the continuing world tour of that show. Here is the piece as I altered it in Photoshop:


Noexistence, digitally altered painting, 2007.

Around the same time as the painted versions, to help with visualizing the piece, I did a small pen & ink sketch:


Menowar working sketch, 2007, 6" x 10" approx.

Backtracking further, I did a painting in 2004 called "Man O' War", which was the basis for the double version:


Man O' War, 2004, acrylic on plywood, 24" x 19.75".

The 2004 painting was in turn based upon a 2003 brush & ink drawing, which was created at around the same time & in the same spirit as the War Room pieces:


Man O' War, 2003, brush & ink on paper, 14" x 11". Private collection, upstate NY. Also published in Direct Art magazine volume 11, Spring-Summer 2005

It's always interesting (to me, at least) to see how a particular image evolves & takes on a life of its own. I don't usually do multiple versions of a piece. I sometimes do, as in this case, or in a few other thematic examples you might be able to notice in my work.

At this point I have no further plans to do other versions of "Man/Men O' War". But, you never know.