Apollo – My Dad

Oil on canvas / 48″ x 36″ (NFS)

I was attempting to do a portrait of my father with this piece. The imagery and symbols within relate to my perception of him. He died when I was a young child, so what I have in my mind are shadows of ideas about who he may have been. What I feel about my dad is centered around my belief about his love of the desert especially the desert southwest, hence the use of the image of Bryce Canyon and the Joshua tree.

Apollo is a Greek god associated with the sun and spring. I used a partial lyric from a Kate Bush song – Your sun’s coming out. Just saying it could even make it happen… is referring to my sun as well as my father’s. The blue jays, as with all the birds I use in my work, are about transcendence – emotional and spiritual liberation. I associate the jay with my father for some reason am not quite sure about yet. The camp chairs and words “black coffee” and “drive” are about early memories of road trips into the desert with my mom, dad and sister in our Airstream trailer.