This is a quote from one of my most favorite paintings of all time, Michelangelo’s Last Judgment wall in the Sistine Chapel. This is done exactly to scale, and placed here on the wall about compositionally it would be in Michelangelo’s famous work. I originally painted him for my Kings and Queens show, where I wanted to create great models and scenes for people to follow, in an elegiac narrative that permeates this installation as one of its "chapters." In this show for me it was if all the peoples existed in circulation of this Christ, like Seraphim angels in Dante’s Paradise. The amazing thing about the Michelangelo original is that he is beautiful, but powerful and strong as Christ should be, but sensitive and rich with live feeling. The wonderful thing about copying the Masters is learning from their strokes and intuition, and having done many renditions after Michelangelo I’ve learned much. I love that he was about the sacred and profane almost simultaneously, as this image, which is both spiritual and sexy, and it was great to get up close and personal and see just how wonderfully painted it was—but also how thin but serrated the plaster was on the fresco, and trying to dive into how Michelangelo was able to paint in emulation of how he chiseled. It was also great to get eye to eye with the center of this master in more ways than one, and learn from all.