Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Avidya

("IGNORANCE")













This is "Avidya", or The Thousand Faces of Ignorance.  It's by far the largest thing I've ever made, being some eighteen feet wide (in five panels) and 4 and two thirds feet high.  And there are 1000 faces in the piece - 1001 if you count the one in the mouth of the big mask in the center separately. It's the result of 10 years of work, off and on, during which time I had them arrayed on the floor of my studio. They've been accidentally trampled on by a repairman(how a person can not see hundreds of little faces staring up at them from the floor, I'll never know), peed on by my cat when I didn't change his litter box promptly, and trampled on again(this time deliberately) by my model's toddler son.

They also served as my emotional diary during the period when I was seeing a psychotherapist. Each time I went in for my weekly session I'd have the week's output of faces with me(a great motivator to work steadily), and the therapist would begin the session by reading their expressions, just like a physiognomist.


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