The Big Cauldron

Turns out an old painting of mine was in a group show in Lahaska PA at Wessel O'Connor Gallery celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots last summer and I didn't know about it until a few days ago. The show was called OUT/LOUD and it was curated by my old friend Billy O'Connor. Anyway, it was a great honor to see my name listed between Warhol and Wojnarowicz.. The painting is from 1998 and it's based on some images from Elem Klimov's great film about the Nazi invasion of Belarus: Come and See. The painting's called: Scrubbing the Big Cauldron.

Though the picture is derived from some ten or more frames from Klimov's film, the young man, scrubbing the cauldron in preparation for a bath, resembles my older brother (who died when he was nearly 22 years old) and the other young man, swatting his torso with young tree branches, looks something like my younger brother as a teen, and he is also like my eldest nephew, Wesley.  So beyond its rather ominous and homoerotic qualities, it also reflects some experience I have as a brother and uncle.