Title: 42 Be Refined by Fire 1996
Size: 30" x 40"
Description: Mixed Media Collage on canvas
Comments: This was the second in a series of the next group of paintings I used my own face. Now that my own face was on the canvas it was if I were spilling my “guts” on the canvas so that everyone would know who I am. It was unnerving to me painting myself in the same way I painted the generic pictures from magazines. It is so easy for me to criticize and judge others. To see the sin in their lives. But when I have to judge myself it is a lot more difficult. Jesus mentions this in the Bible when he says, “First take the beam out of your own eye before you try to take the splinter out of your brothers eye”. For me the refinement process has just started. Each painting that I do that uses my own face humbles me. My paintings have become a very personal statement about me.