Bar Scene, 36" x 48", oil on panel, 1984. Museum collection.

In this blindfolded painting I am working from the memory of a scene I had witnessed a few nights earlier at a local pub. There was a couple sitting diagonally across from me just below my line of sight at the television. The couple was obviously arguing, or breaking up, or both--a really sad scene. Just above them on the television was a head shot of the U.S. Olympic sprinter, Carl Lewis, who was beaming with pride after winning his fourth gold medal of the 1984 summer Olympics. What struck me about this combination of "images" was that in my frame of sight I was simultaneously witnessing the couple's interpersonal tragedy and Carl Lewis' personal triumph. All the figures in the scene appear to display an element of hysteria albeit from differing points and extremes of the emotional spectrum. It is appropriate to mention here that covering ones eyes with a blindfold and painting this, or any composition, carries its own element of hysteria. Hysteria is simply a factor of human thought and activity.