The Library (Sunday)
This painting was inspired by an article from The Big Issue that I read while in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 2004. The article was about the war in Chechnya and featured a partial photograph of the bombed Holland House Library following an air raid in London in 1940. I was struck by the juxtaposition of well-dressed gentlemen calmly reading and perusing books amid the smoking debris of the roofless structure. I found myself reflecting on the irony of humanity’s knowledge and our tendency toward self-destruction. This idea fit the world of INVI that I had created to explore these concepts, hence the reference to my Sunday and Umbrella series of paintings through the central window.
When I began composing the painting, I only had access to two-thirds of the original image, as it had been cropped for the article. Not realizing there was more, I invented the right side of the composition to depict more modern figures that could be interpreted as being of another gender, age, or race. The painting is on a black canvas, inlaid with holographic paper collage (my first use of the material) on the central mirror, the artwork on the left wall, and inside the open book on the right.
With the painting nearing completion at the end of 2004, I left Scotland to spend time with family and, upon returning, was stopped by immigration and told I would not be allowed to reenter the country because my entry clearance form was missing from my approved six-month visa extension. The British Consulate had forgotten to staple the form to my documentation, and though the office in Glasgow had it in their folder, it was deemed my fault for attempting to enter the country with incomplete paperwork. I returned to the United States with little savings and no immediate way back. Over the next several years, I worked to clear up the issue, and in 2006 I was able to return to Scotland to retrieve the painting, which had been stored and displayed in the green room of a popular music club on Leith Walk. I removed the canvas from its stretcher, rolled it up, and flew it back with me to New London, Connecticut.
Over the next 20 years, I found occasions to complete the painting and kept the work with me wherever I moved. Now in Akron, Ohio, the painting is proudly displayed in our downtown Akron gallery. My hope is to someday sell it, see it become part of a permanent museum collection, and use the funds from the sale to return to the world of INVI to create the many more paintings from this series that I have never stopped dreaming of.
