2006-2007
These drawings remove the narrated conflict from a theatrical space of the Epic Ink and place it on a map of Mars. Figures guard, patrol, gather reconnaissance and fight each other across the foreign topography of an alien planet, across the mythic features of the Roman god of war.
Using the planet Mars serves multiple purposes. It removes the effect of warfare from the specific and the political, and places it in the realm of imagination, where arguably, war always begins. It places the conflict in the realm of mythology as well as the realm of current headlines. I find it perplexing that the same human ingenuity that thrusts surface to air missiles creates the rockets that took NASA’s probes to the surface of the red planet. By extrapolation, this series asks if humanity will take its conflicts off planet even as the manned exploration and eventual habitation of Mars are planned. Finally, the title of the project also references popular culture.