AIDS / Anxiety
In 1980 I read an article in the NYTimes about the unknown cancer afflicting gay men. There was no cure, and my blood ran cold. I was a direct target for this fatal disease. Gay friends around me started to die painful deaths and my life changed abruptly: the sexual liberation ceased, and I stopped having what anyone would have called sex. The terror licked like flames. I stopped working on my figurative paintings and turned to images of fire instead, the most savage and overwhelming that I could conjure — to match my anxiety. AIDS burned on and many of us lived for years not knowing whether we were infected or not — there was no treatment or test. As an artist I had no choice but to face the horror and paint the feelings I could not evade. These works were necessary for me and not mere choice; my style became expressionism. The medium in many of the flame paintings is illustrator’s ink, which stains the page or canvas with brilliant translucent reds, purples, and oranges. The large paintings are oil. During this same period, I also painted hulls of sailboats without rudders or masts, tossing in turbulent seas, symbols of the dilemma we all felt.
I also constructed a larger-than-life “Fiery Truck Installation,” on two scrims that hang in front of one another photographed from front and side. As the viewer moves past the scrims, the flames and truck seem to move. I wanted people to “feel the flames, experience the horror”. The installation was included in an exhibition at the SFMOMA Artists Gallery in 1985.
At the end of this period of my work I introduced a figure from Rembrandt, “Woman Wading,” a symbol of gentle eroticism besieged by a plague. This juxtaposition grounded the chaos and led me to other paintings based on art historical imagery (Through History). The figure and the flames also derive from a fiery crash that killed the beloved model Katy Allen when a roofing truck lost its breaks on 18th Street and destroyed her car and business partner. Katy had been the center of a group of artists, a “hippie socialite,” according to a friend, and the longtime president of the Models’ Guild. After her death the art community mourned and was never the same.
