Upcoming works!

I gotta say, I'm extremely excited to begin my next projects!!  I've been slow to get the photo-shoot started, but it's been scheduled for a week from today.  I'm hoping to get 3 different images/scenes photographed so that once I finish the first painting, I can just continue on to the next 2. 

I have also decided to build the frames and stretch the canvases inbetween now and the photoshoot.  Two of the works will be 4ft 6in by 6ft, and the other one will be 6ft 6in by 8ft 6in - that's one foot wider than my other large-paintings!  Not much, but I'm so excited for it!  Unfortunately I am bound by the limitations set by doorways and gallery ceilings....  Otherwise I would do much larger paintings.  On the upside, the larger work of the three shouldn't take as long as this last one I completed did.  It ("Curing the Disease") took 6 months to complete, but most of that time was taken up by painting thousands of threads on a sweater. 

The first painting will be a take on a Boroque work by Carravagio, my favorite of his works.  It will be an allegory for bridging the gap of ignorance and misunderstanding between doctors and their patients (mental illnesses in particular).  The other medium-sized work will be a metaphor for ideas the medical world has for treating mental illnesses - sort of the "put a bandaid on it and it will be better" or just cover-it-up and it will all go away...  Third painting, the much larger one, will be an illustration of the moment a manic episode begins.  It will illustrate the feelings of euphoria, self-diety or divine purpose, and invincibility.  This one I am extremely excited about. 

For the work about a manic episode, I have decided to simply call it "Episode 2: Mania", and adapt the title of "Curing the Disease" to "Episode 4: Suicide (Curing the Disease)".  The two will be a type of "mini-series" within a series of work.  However, I am begining to think that the "Catharsis" series will inevitably be my personal, artistic voice for my entire career.  Mental illness awareness, treatment reform, and many other issues are my life.  Daily.  And they are always changing, as well as my knowledge and understanding are growing.