Goodbye Cruel World..., 22" x 28", oil and acrylic on paper, 1985. Artist's collection.

All of the two-sphere/grid paintings I made at this time were improvised on the spot. The only preconceived notion I had was that the composition would include two spheres and a grid element. Each of these paintings began by my applying a randomly chosen colored acrylic ground to a sheet of paper and from there the improvising would begin.

This painting has one of the more visually "readable" narrative scenarios of this series of work. The shapes represent two extremes of stasis and movement. The orange sphere is virtually frozen in its position. Its character as a form is suggested only by the negative space which surrounds it. The violet sphere is literally bouncing across the top of the square remnants of the grid and flying off into a dark abyss. The abyss area surprisingly curls around at the bottom of the picture plane, which in some way orients the abyss area with the orange sphere. This curve visually leads the eye of the viewer from the path of the violet sphere's projected fall back up to the orange sphere, thus enhancing the implicit relationship between the two spheres.