Recently, I gave an artist talk at Blue Door Gallery in the Artists’ District of Yonkers, NY. I spoke about the newest painting in my PLAYGROUND OF THE AUTOCRATS series, which tells stories about Russian history in pictures. Below are some photographs of the talk.
Right: Audience teases “When did you shave your beard?” as I show them my sketches for Ivan the Terrible’s face, because I posed for it myself in my bathroom mirror. Left: My final painting of Ivan (Detail of “Your Grasping, Scheming V.I.P.s.”)
Responding to an audience question about my process of creating this panel, “Your Grasping, Scheming V.I.Ps.”
Your Grasping, Scheming V.I.P.s is the first panel in what will become a 5-paneled work – a pentaptych – entitled Darling Godsonny Stalin (Ivan the Terrible Advises the Infant Stalin). The completed pentaptych will playfully tell the tragic story of Russian rulers’ recurring terror against their own people, from Tsar Ivan IV (the Terrible) to Stalin, who caused the deaths of upwards of 20 million innocent Russians.
I believe the past is godparent to the present, and that landscape and environment are godparent to all. One way I visualize this in my art is via my fantasy of Ivan the Terrible as one of Stalin’s godparents. You can see Ivan singing to the infant Stalin in the top of the panel above.
Your Grasping, Scheming V.I.P.s is about Ivan the Terrible’s relationship to his nobility before he began his terror against them. (For more, see Ivan the Terrible: Madman or Crazy Like a Fox?)
Ivan the Terrible lived within a “spider’s web” of noble clans, whose “aristocratic pretensions could not fail to come into conflict with the autocratic aspirations of the first Russian tsar.”
To become a true autocrat, Ivan had to cut his way free of a “spider’s web” of powerful aristocratic clans.
Russian noble clans sometimes formed marriage alliances and sometimes fought each other as they vied for influence with the tsar. Detail of my painting “Your Grasping, Scheming VIPs.”
Sweet dreams, baby Stalin….
Stalin’s godfather, Ivan the Terrible, flies on a broom topped with a severed dog’s head – both Ivan’s symbols of his Terror against his own people.
dark web market links deep web sites
dark web websites black internet
the dark internet deep dark web
dark web markets dark web drug marketplace
tor markets darknet search engine
tor darknet dark market onion
deep web links tor darknet
darknet drugs darknet market list
deep dark web darknet drugs
dark market 2022 tor marketplace
black internet darkmarket url
deep web links darkmarket
darknet market lists dark websites
I read this paragraph fully on the topic of the resemblance of most up-to-date and previous technologies,
it’s awesome article.
dark web market darkweb marketplace
free dark web dark websites
dark web sites tor market links
darknet site darknet drugs
the dark internet darknet drug store
dark web websites deep web sites
deep web drug url darknet market lists
dark web access dark web sites
dark web markets deep web search
darknet sites tor dark web
dark web market list darkmarket link
dark market 2022 darkmarket 2022
dark market url dark market link
dark web market darknet drugs
dark websites dark markets 2022
dark market list darkmarket list
dark web drug marketplace darkmarket
darkmarkets darkmarket url
the dark internet tor markets
deep web drug url darknet search engine
dark web market links deep web search
dark web search engine black internet
dark markets 2022 darknet search engine
darknet websites dark web market links
blackweb official website darknet links
deep web drug links onion market
dark web market list dark markets 2022
darkmarket url bitcoin dark web
tor market darknet market links
dark market 2022 dark market 2022
black internet darkmarket 2022
darknet drug store dark market onion
darknet market dark websites
dark web search engines blackweb
darknet marketplace the dark internet
onion market free dark web