"The After Effect of Too Many Choices, Realized"

Semi Abstract Loss

This is part of a series of paintings that I've been doing that involve man, woman, and God. The monolith or obelisk represents man, or me.  The two box shapes to the left and right represent a woman of some sort.  The rest of the paint surrounding everything, ultimately the entire painting, represents God's relationship to everything or His involvement in some way shape or form, no pun intended. 

The idea started during a heavy sketching period of mine, 2021-23. It started when I was trying to do some consequential sketching involving the conceptualization of an idea. The idea was that I make a random representation of man, woman and the rest would be kind of like the spirit of God and engulfing everything, being everything, having its influence upon everything, except free will. 

There's a whole series of these paintings and you can see this conceptualization in many pieces. One could gather an abundance of meanings from the unconscious, subconscious, and conscious world while deconstructing this piece.  The title of the painting is from being on too many dating sites, most likely.

I got a divorce in 2021, I think. Time has had an interesting way of passing since then so I don't really remember the exact year and time. Being with somebody for 10 years has a way of affecting you when suddenly they are gone. I had an entire family, three kids and wife for ten years, and then literally one day I did not, it was very surreal, still is. There was no “I love you”, no “thanks for everything”, no nothing, just gone, poof, like a flash of light. 

Whether you love somebody or not it still affects you. You start realizing the love and what type of love it was.  I began to question a lot of things about my walk with God, and my desire to share this life with somebody. It became evident how important it was going to be to find somebody on the same spiritual plane as me, and how challenging that was going to be. 

This series and this painting represent that quest. I truly feel like a stranger in a strange land, an alien. This painting epitomizes that feeling.