The Silence of death, 40" x 50", October 2004, Acrylic on canvas, Not for sale

The moment when you cross the last threshold: the ticking of the clock sounding like the stamping of heavy hooves, the distant snorting of a mighty beast, running toward you, now rearing before the hooves stamp down one last time. In painting this picture, I wished to summon in the viewer's mind the portrait, Napolean Bonaparte Crossing the Alps by the Great Saint Bernard Pass - 1800 by Jacques-Louis David (click here to see it) and idealized proportions of the unreal horse.

In David's painting, Bonaparte is off to conquer another country. More death. It's a war and in the words of a famous person, 'stuff happens'. It does.

As with all the other paintings that (will) form part of the planned series, there is no detail in this picture apart from the subject. Death induces feelings of claustrophobia: there is no room at the moment for anything else.