"Chemical Weapons" by Troy's Work Table. Frost Park Chalk Off for Friday 22 July 2016.
Sidewalk chalk, charcoal, chalk pastels, water/spray bottle.
Left to right: "Agent Orange," "Mustard Gas," "Sarin," and "Chlorine Gas."
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I know many people who have been exposed to chemical agents and chemical weapons and cancer-causing materials and doses of radiation, primarily due to military service and/or work for government industry.
This quadtych of images is an exploration of what these chemical agents/weapons mean to me. I knew I wanted them to be abstract landscapes, but still retain elements of their essence and/or what they do to human and animal bodies. I also knew that I wanted each panel to contain three layers that would run across all the panels—an upper "cloud" layer, an middle sky layer, and a lower land layer.
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"Sarin," panel three in the quadtych "Chemical Weapons." This is the most personal panel for me, with the white "cloud" layer based upon MRIs of my spine from the early 2000s. It also represents my lung partially collapsing on the day of the Chernobyl disaster.
For me, there is a breath in this panel, but it is being squeezed out, even if ever so gently.
1 comment:
I love this counterbalance between your handling of color and form: in ostensibly beautiful composition and the asphyxiating subject matter. Grace, brutality and the tension in between.
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