This is another image culled from photos of the costume character actor Janos Prohaska who died in a plane crash. He more famously was the "cookie bear" on the Andy Williams show for a brief time in the early 70’s, where Andy who begin to croon his famous "Moon River," and just before, the "Cookie Bear" would shuffle onto the stage asking for a cookie, to which Andy would reply "You can’t have a cookie!" and the saddened bear would shuffle off. This was Janos as an alien, however, in a more positive role, and I feel he represents an alien angel telling Andy (representing Man) that all you need is "Love."

This work "blisses" out into otherworldly landscapes, hopefully appropriate to its theme. Since college I have made abstract paintings (that subconsciously perhaps begin to cohere as figurative scenes) side-by-side figurative works (that purposively fall apart into abstraction). With this show (Rebel Angels, 2005), and specifically in this painting, I feel that I have finally been able to conflate both abstraction and the figurative into works that have recognizable themes and subject matter for the viewer to "suture into," and upon contemplation, have them "open up" into other worldly (inner worldly?) situations that are transcendent and sublime. I want all my paintings to be "puzzle boxes" that first appear to be "normal" recognizable images, only to have their veil pulled off to reveal subconsciously derived "windows onto other worlds" the more the viewer "unlocks" the works by their persistent gaze. (2005)