9/11 Crucifixion

2001-2011
woodcut print
8 ft x 8 ft

The division and tension between themes of darkness and light, secular and sacred , free and oppressed that I was in exploring at the turn of the Millenia had started to reach a crisis point because I could not reconcile these two seemingly opposing visions of the world, we are living in that are unfolding around us simultaneously. On one side of the studio, I was reaching for the light and on the other side of the studio I was creating works that were pushed along by the darkness. I always had these two bodies of work on the go at any one time even though in my head I could not conceptually unite them in any way and this fractured way of working that was full of conflict continued .

All of this changed on the day of 9/11 when the axis of the world felt like it was about to change . That evening in my studio, I put two full sheets of MDF against the wall and ferociously drew a full body scream in charcoal that lasted from dawn till dusk, a scream that was in part aimed at the creator God but more so to the arrogance and stupidity of our world leaders who have hijacked religion to suit their own agendas creating a world order upheld by division, inequality and disorder where nation is pitted against nation and religious division is at the heart of many wars. Grunewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece came to my mind and without thinking I drew a large crucifixion on which the suffering servants pierced and broken with body that has been beaten to a bloody pulp is nailed to a cross. The words ‘didn’t they know he was a Jewish Palestinian’ kept echoing in my head, a reference to the religion and region that Jesus was born into, and which is today being torn apart like never before.
I was haunted by the events unfolding as I tried to let the ramifications flow through the charcoal. The man on the cross was Middle Eastern and looked not unlike the Osama Bin Laden ,the man the west was now hunting down in the so-called ‘axis of evil’. The attack on and collapse of the twin towers gave Bush and Blair permission to invade Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein who was now also a part of the so-called axis of evil. Bush high fives Blair with his painted plastic smile as they gather their warplanes for attack. I started to draw the shards of glass falling from collapse of the two giant phallic symbols of the twin towers as they came tumbling down and as these financial bastions of the ‘civilized ‘world collapse people of all nations creeds colours and nations flee from the splintering glass being fired like bullets as they run from the crumbling concrete. On the right people gather on the pier at Melby in a mysterious limbo like holding place. The pure unfiltered and uncontainable spirit of the creator God as symbolised by the circles in the top right-hand corner of the print and the interlaced language of interconnected circles is different from the linear language of rubble and collapsing concrete. The creator god moves in different ways to our worldly systems, a cyclical language in harmony with nature and at odds with the collapsing straight lines of the towers and all that they symbolized.
As morning started to break after drawing from dawn till dusk, I emerged from the cloud of charcoal dust looking as if I’d been working at the coal face. I was confronted by an 8 ft x 8ft drawing that is not so much a declaration of faith but rather a desperate scream to God in a world that is falling apart. I had drawn in its entirety the large central panel of what went on to become the 9/11 crucifixion woodcut.