Vanitas Still Life

Vanitas Still Life, 2009. 18" x 14". acrylic on canvas.

Here I have dealt with the way in which I feel art and architecture has extirpated itself from my life. The canvas with easel on the right has turned its back to the viewer. On the upturned table a t-square lays at an impossible angle; a break in it occurs out of view, obfuscated by the canvas. I positioned the t-square in a reverse of the heroic diagonal, a rising diagonal, to give it the appropriate lugubrious connotation.

The candle has the budding potential to light the entire scene ablaze in a bloom of fire. This is the vanitas, the meaningless and terseness of hopes and dreams. As I vacillate over whether or not I will ever get back into architecture and art, the painting reminds me to revere the ephemeral qualities of life.