The Queror series of oil portraits engage the Hero archetype. In the words of Carl Jung, “In myths the hero is the one who conquers the dragon, not the one who is devoured by it…. Also, he is no hero who never met the dragon, or who, if he once saw it, declared afterwards that he saw nothing.”

Painted directly on camo technical fabric currently used by the US military, these pieces are a reaction to something a young vet suffering from PTSD told me. Now a father to a toddler he lamented that the camo never comes off. Here, camo is the fabric that grounds the image, and like the existential suffering of those who have worn the uniform in war, it never comes off. The dragon in their hero’s journey was first encountered in field of war; now they must wrestle with their experiences and not be devoured.