Man
on Fire
Mark
Vallen 2006
Oil on wood panel
11 3/4" x 23 3/4"
Private collection
Here's
what the artist
said about his painting:
"As
a teenager I saw a reproduction of the mural, Man
of Fire, created in 1938 by the Mexican Muralist,
José Clemente Orozco. The artist had painted a gigantic
blazing man in the cupola of the Hospicio Cabañas,
in Guadalajara.
Orozco's
mural had a profound and lasting effect upon me, but
little did I know many years later I would be painting
my own apocalyptic vision of a man on fire.
In
1987, during a mass demonstration in Los Angeles opposing
the visit of the president of Iran to the UN, as well
as voicing disapproval of the Iran-Iraq war, the 31
year old Iranian writer and antiwar activist Neusha
Farrahi committed suicide by pouring gasoline over
his body and self-immolating before a stunned crowd
of thousands.
The
heartbreaking event led me to immortalize Farrahi's
martyrdom in my oil painting - Man on Fire.
My
painting is both a metaphor for our times and an artwork
based upon real world events.
The
blazing man could be said to represent suffering humanity
engulfed by war and repression - alluding to the current
catastrophes in the Middle East and elsewhere."
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