Portraits
After I got my BFA from Fordham University, I felt that I needed to continue my studies. I enrolled in what was then known as the Pratt Graphic Center (now Manhattan Graphic Center) on 30th st and Lexington ave in NYC. I studied printmaking, particularly etching. This was my first successful piece. It's a portrait of one of my artistic heroes, Antonin Artaud, the french actor, philosopher, and drama theorist. His ideas about "Theater of the Absurd", and direct interaction with the audience was very influential to avant guard theater, and he became a patron saint to the beatnik movement, and all us young artists. I think that Egon Schiele and Antonin Artaud were the two biggest examples of what it was to be a "fully committed artist" to art students of my generation. I know that Egon still looms large for art students today, but I think Antonin's place in that pantheon is slowly fading. This is my attempt to keep him in, at least, my pantheon.
In keeping w/ the spirit Antonin's writings, I experimented with a lot of random splashings of acid, aquatint, and plate manipulation.
