In each image 2 or three hands are loosely grappling in the center of a (white) field (cloth) – cloth allowed to look more like fields, like landscape, mountains, air, cloud.  One hand has been dipped in red paint – almost vermillion in hue (bloodlike but bloodless) – but in the images all of the hands have caught and spread the paint between them.  They speak to me about mortality, and also about the lies that painting can tell – how the skin that is painted and the skin made of paint are both illusions.

The title Peripeteia comes from the Greek: a turning point.  I am reminded also of another term from theater: catharsis, the soul purged of its excessive passions, a purification through an emotional climax. The hands function as a stand-ins for the figures – a sort of Greek chorus who mimic and echo the action and serve that way to define it.

As I look at these pictures I think of Greek Tragedy: combining minimal means with a density of emotion.  The hands function as a stand ins for the figures – a sort of Greek chorus who mimic and echo the action and serve that way to define it.