You are free to accept the story or not. My purpose here is to tell how the painting came about. That doesn’t mean you must take it so literally. In creating these paintings they morph quite dramatically from the source material. I would hope the viewer has the strength of will to allow for a free interpretation.
Of course it sold. The owner is still intrigued by it twenty-some years later…

Great. Definitely one of your best. What I was trying to say was pretty much what you said. The strength of your work is in the ambiguity . Telling the " story " cheats us of the chance to interpret independently. The tension is so well presented & becomes more of a feeling the viewer inherits. I really enjoy your 80’s stuff for it’s raw energy, not only in subject matter but in the doing as well. It takes tremendous drive & focus to produce so many excellent works of this nature & size. You rock