The Annunciation painting was an attempt to re-order religious iconography, to play with it, be ironic with it, put it into a painting and have some kind of contemporary meaning. Obviously taking the look of it, the vocabulary of it, but trying to differently explore the mystery as proclaimed by the Catholic religion.

Sometimes when I look at it, it comes off as a clumsy, stilted amalgamation of references, rather than any coherent revelation of anything new or meaningful. Nonetheless it mirrors a search.

Some of the non-Catholic references: the white circles on Mary, including the halo, and the one above her in the keystone of the arch represent the chakras as in Indian thinking, the symbols on the page of the book she had been contemplating are Greek, the partridge are Greek symbols of the soul, the worm and the plants cracking the stone of Mary’s terrace are symbols of the forever present temptations to the human soul as represented in nature… and various other things, compared to Catholic iconography, are backward and/or presaging suffering and death.

A friend involved with the arts in New York, whom I respected, thought the approach was worth further pursuit, the beginning of a possible style. The conversation stuck with me because I did not feel the need to pursue one particular style, I wanted pursue my provocations and ideas for art and let them come out in whatever style they did.