Visual Art
Since my first exhibit at the Biblioteca del Estado in Cáceres, Spain, in June 1993, I have exhibited my artwork in museums, galleries, universities and art spaces around the world more than 200 times. My work has been profiled in magazines, on TV and radio 50+ times. And I have developed a visual voice at the intersection of Expressionism and classical mystical thought.
I work in series, so each image below leads to a full body of work, including artist statement, exploring the particular theme or idea.
Over the past 30+ years, I have created 500+ paintings on canvas and wood, and 10,000 graphic works — drawings and paintings on paper.
CLICK ON EACH IMAGE TO SEE THE FULL SERIES OF THOSE WORKS
Homage
2023
So, Monsignor Coll is lying in bed in his favorite flowered shirt and orange bell-bottoms and the explosions outside and the smell of cheap mezcal and me wondering how did I end up here, in this bed across the river from the city listening to a dying man talk about far off explorers and America’s last free Indian?
She Came from Tunisia
2022
In October 2022, Tunisian singer, artist and activist Nora Gharyeni visited IHRAF headquarters in NYC, and we had the chance to spend time together. She grew very upset with me, when I told her I had not been doing visual work in many months, indicating that I must get back to working on my art. She bought me this sketchbook, which I turned into an artist-book honoring her visit to see me and this great city.
Figure Drawings 2017-present
Starting in late 2017, I have been attending drawing sessions at Minerva Dunham’s Spring Street Studio, which was first on Broome Street in the Lower East Side, and then after Covid, moved to 91 Canal Street, in Chinatown. She hosts more than a dozen 3-hour figure drawing sessions — from quick poses to longer, 40-minute and even 3-hour poses — every week.
What’s the Matter
2023
This artist book explores The Matter, and whether or not there really is even a “The Matter.” Or if the whole thing is just an incomprehensible jumble.
All pages collage, gouache, ink on paper, 10” x 7”.
Parable Paintings 2020-2021
Created in response to and during the lockdown, to explore the manner in which humans need to build narrative and story around our experience, to feel that we understand our world and might, in some sense, control it.
Illustrations for an Unpublished Novel
2018-2019
This series of small (10” x 8”) acrylic, ink and collage works on paper expressed the narrative of my unpublished novel, currently (and perhaps forever) being shopped to publishers.
Sub Basement 2015-2017
This series of paintings on canvas, as well as gouache and ink on paper,, explored the narrative of my play “Sub Basement,” which was produced at IRT Theater (NYC) in 2017: “A quirky, comedic odyssey that expands from the streets of New York to the inner workings of its characters’ minds.”
La Bestia: Sweet Mother 2013-2014
During a residency at the LABA House of Jewish Culture (NY), I produced a series of portraits from a multi-media dance/theater piece I wrote and directed
Conference of the Birds 2011-2012
This series of two large paintings (each 6’ high by 30’ long, in panels of 6’ x 2.5’) explores the spiritual voyage taken by the conference of the birds in the medieval mystical tract by Attar (d. 1273), in the book by the same name.
Response to Machiavelli 2003-2005
This series of figurative works explores political energy, which is simply “war by another name” (Clausewitz). Here we see the “Undersecretary of Absolution.”
Letters to an Imaginary Friend 2009-2011
This series of small works on paper, based in my text, explore the absurdity of the human perspective and predicament.
The Barcelona Drawings 2012
Drawing practice has been central to my work from the beginning of career. I have filled more than 100 sketchbooks with blind contour drawings - 8000 plus works. This series comes from a one-month art residency in Barcelona in winter, 2012.
Human Rights Painting Project 2001-2009
This series of paintings and drawings, working with Amnesty International and highlighting human rights defenders around the world, exhibited the unifying and international energy of personal sacrifice, and the struggle for the common good..
Cousins Public Art Project 2005-2007
Installed temporarily in bus shelters in Tempe, AZ and permanently in Silver Spring, MD, this project explored the unity of spiritual thought at the heart of all religious traditions.
Shalom/Salaam Project 2000-2007
This series of paintings highlights the influence of Sufism (Islamic mysticism) on the development of Jewish mysticism and the Kabbalah, during the medieval times, and how these ideas reverberate through the Jewish religion to this day.
Broken Berlin Wall 2006
Painted during an artist residency at Cooper Union (NY), this 72’ long piece (in 24 panels) highlights seemingly impenetrable boundaries, appearing beautiful on one side, yet hiding a dark interior.
In the Garden of the Mystical Redoubt 2005-2006
These works explore one theory of classica, narcissistic mystical attainment: that it is cold, lonely, miserable, unloved and unloving, terrifying, insanity producing and just plain wrong.
Suburban Boy 2006
Suburban Boy is a 40-page artist book (in three different editions) which examines the suffocating normalcy of life in American sub-urban culture.
Heretical Paintings 1999-2002
This series of paintings captures the intent and spiritual passion of Christian thinker Meister Eckhart's (d. 1328) mysticism.
Mythology of the Mundane 1996-1997
Predicated in the belief that mystery and mythology are hidden in the mundane moments of our daily life, I created a series of images wrestled from the stream of everyday existence.
Secret Garden Installation 1998-2002
Secret Garden uses the teachings of the Sufi mystics as inspiration to create the installation.Employing drawings of dissimilar images, this Sufi Secret Garden offers access to an appreciation of divine unity beyond "cognition."
Paintings from the Baal Shem Tov 1998-2002
This series of paintings captures the Baal Shem Tov’s joyous manner of worship and the legends that he engendered.
Paintings from the Aether 1997-1998
Painted when I was learning about "chaos" theory and the underlying unity of systems in our universe that this theory implies, I created this series of works to express the interlacing of energy and movement that powers our physical world.
Origins of Life 1993-1996
I worked on this series of sculptural paintings while living in the small town of Caceres, Spain between 1993 and 1995. Painting on found and treated wood, I created a series of works touching on themes of beauty and entropy – and the way in which they come together to create the human experience.