Did I achieve what I set out to do with the concluded collection?
The thirteen collection requires the viewer to observe and digest each painting with an open mind. Not to take every detail at face value but consider the possibility of symbolism, irony, ambiguity, abstraction and at times audacious fantasy which has been used to portray sensations felt through life (not necessarily the artists own) in varying degrees through each scene.
And that’s what each painting should be considered, a scene. Imagine being led into a room where a movie you have never seen before has been playing for an unknown time but is paused on one crucial scene and you are asked to determine from that single still image what has played out so far to get the movie to that point, not only the characters you can see before you but the characters out of shot, what is happening now, past and what their fate is beyond.
Could you tell whether Brad Pitt was the victim or perpetrator as he holds up his wife’s decapitated head on freeze frame without watching the full movie? Would you know the pain and suffering that of Smeagel who was once a gentle Hobbit as you view the creature he has now become known as Gollum sleazily plotting the death of Frodo to regain the ring that was once his without watching 9 hours of the Lord of the Rings? If you looked upon Batman would you think of him a villain, or perhaps someone playing out a sexual fantasy or just a fucking weirdo rather than the hero he truly is? The same analysis can be true of real life the wife defending herself from a rapist; or a conniving bitch who plotted to murder her husband for a large insurance policy but got caught and made up a story of rape to avoid punishment? Life can only be viewed from the angle you see unless you’re willing to open your mind and consider all the possibilities.