WE ARE LEGION was inspired by a non-fiction book I read in in 1992 about a split personality who was a serial-killer convinced they were made up of thousands of different souls. At the time, the book seemed kind of creepy but ultimately dealt with the subject of insanity. A topuc that all too well describes aspects of our world today. Institutions decay and fall apart, democracy is in decline. People are saying empathy is the problem. Actually, caring for the safety and wellbeing of others is the only Solution. This painting came about over 2 Decades after I read the eponymous book because i started having dreams about it. Actually nightmares. Slowly unfolding webs of gloom, doom and spiralling chaos, like a beast slouching towards Bethlehem. Out of darkness came light. The more I put all of the images and emotions down into canvas, the more the canvas contained all of the fear and angst. I felt lighter as I transferred the tenebrous thoughts from iteration to pastel, acrylic, oil markers. layers of protective sealant. crayon and charcoal. I worked fast and then put the piece asode and forgot about it for a couple years. It seemed fragmented, dissolute and childishly done. Then, when my job as an Executive Producer overseeing and developing tv series like Man v Food, Ghost Adventures Et Alia took me from Washington DC back to Knoxville TN, I realized that this unfinished canvas had traveled with me from Knoxville to Boston to DC and then back to Knoxville again 8 years later. In what is an unusual act of volition for me, I unpacked the crate it was in and suddenly it seemed both genial, energetic and delightful. The demons had been affixed and neutralized. I walked around my loft, a space that was once the warehouse above a Kosher deli a century earlier and kept looking at the painting...over days and weeks. Every few days I would remove something from the painting to better see what was really there. I blacked out areas that bored me or seemed unnecessary. I sealed layers of oil pastel and crayon under archival matte gel. Then, one day I just enjoyed seeing the spectacle of it all. The fear trapped in the painting was still real, but had lost the power to frighten me. I knew then that we can have dark thoughts and ideas but we do not need to act them out or poison our friendships and community with the ashes of other souls sad need for dominance and control. It took over a decade but now I see that WE ARE LEGION is a proud statement of human possibility. We can transcend and transform the darkness all around us by looking at it and calling it out for the weakness it truly is.

Artwork Size & Ink Base:

77x 108

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Daniel Aaron Schwartz

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