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19. Demosthenes
Michelangelo Zetterq...
Detail 20 Demosthenes (pen and ink)
Concerning this detail. I think I have come up with something new concerning it. This figure has been a handful of different ideas. It is the same pose, same microphone, only now instead of a miniature stage is the receiver of a telephone signifying communication. She is also wearing a set of NVG's to see in the dark with. Demosthenes is Detail 20 of The Thinker which is Painting 7 of The Man in the Wheelchair series. The Wheelchair is painting 20 of Night Vision Goggles. This early series is a collection of portraits of 20 great scientists and thinkers from Aristotle to Hawking. So the figure in Demosthenes is wearing a history of great thinkers to see through the darkness of speechlessness. The kite is a Pre-Wheelchair idea from the late 80's early 90's. At first it was a symbol of the resurrection and crucifixion of the New Testament. Later still, around 1993 the kite became a symbol of overcoming obstacles. I cut two holes in the kite and it became a mask. The mask had no hole for the mouth for a reason. It's for one who succeeds without talking. The figure I had wearing this mask with a stick attachment (like a party mask) was holding it with his left hand and lifting his other hand up like a puppet. The right had no fingers as if to say "this is not a hand". The palm of the fingerless hand has an open mouth speaking in it. The old Prisma Color pencil drawing that I have in my other room, (at least I think I still have it) is this figure called The Ventriloquist. The idea was that he speaks not with his mouth but with his art. In the back ground was a mushroom cloud, an explosion of ideas caused by the masked stranger and his talking hand. Demosthenes is a speaker not a visual artist, so I have the hand (left) down. The mouth on the hand is still there to show you it is The Ventriloquist. I left the fingers on to make the figure more beautiful. The kite is no longer hiding our hero Demosthenes' face, no shyness there. Instead the kite flies overhead like a deity, its tail swirling around the speaker like charisma. The microphone that holds the entire universe in its grip as if it were a ship held by an its anchor. She looks toward the deity, the kite in the sky. She sees with the kites eyes and speaks with the wisdom of one who sees in the darkness, sees the words through the eyes of God. She speaks them on the stage the flat end of a receiver, a speakers pulpit into a winged microphone. The stage has become what has steadily been evolving through the entire painting process. Now that it is a telephone the cord swirling into the kites tail on the other end of the receiver firmly sites a phone booth A statue of Demosthenes. I had this idea of a sort of superman kind of transformation "The Great Speaker" emerges suddenly from the telephone booth, shining the busy signal into the sky. She carries her microphone in one hand and a fire extinguisher to put out political fires. .
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| 14" x 11" pen and ink on paper |
$400.00 |
not for sale |
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