The right hand section is practically lifted whole from Ribera (see facet 4). He set the Chiaroscuro tone, and I just followed from there!

I pose for many of the characters in my paintings. I try to invent from there, so they take on other features. Sometimes I base them on specific people I know. I don’t try to go for a portrait at all, but for strong character.
Many people comment on the ‘creepiness’. To be honest, I don’t even see it. I just try to make pieces that excite me, and the decisions I make lead to what these pieces look like. I don’t want the people in my works to look sweet, or clichéd, so I often find myself looking into the darker side of the human psyche for inspiration.

Yes, they are all inter-linked. As more of them are posted this will become more obvious. Moving through several hours are: flowing water in the afternoon, a fish that morphs into a reclining nude, a red blanket turns to the red door, the night cityscape through the dream hours, an early morning river, a theme of work (house building) through the morning, etc. In addition there is some cross-referencing between hours: both six o’clock hours are painted in the egg tempera and oil Mixed Technique, and have a fish theme, both one o’clock hours are derived from the Villa of Mysteries in Pompeii, both five o’clock hours are devoted to mothers, both eight o’clock hours have reclining figures (male and female). etc.

Thanks for taking the time with the images, John. Ribera is an amazing painter, generally overlooked a bit because his images are so dark. He did a few Madonna’s with putti, but his favorite subjects were tortured saints and very unlucky mortals. Check out his Flaying of Marsyas.

This painting has always intrigued me…I saw it when you exhibited the “Hours” in Newport Beach. Your preparatory sketches and notes were enlightening. I went to Spain this last summer and your transformation of Ribera’s tortured man into “you” was inspired. The “dark night of the soul” profoundly depicted.

Actually, Betty, I reposed myself as both the characters in the Ribera, but only made the torturer look like me. The poor tortured soul is probably some father figure. I’m a Freudian mess!