Artist Note:

The passage paintings are stylistically the initial inspiration for the Huelitic Code, which came into my mind’s eye over 15 years ago while living in NYC.

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I was emotionally exhausted from the ongoing terrorist attacks, the spread of hatred "in the name of God,” and the pain of 9/11. After watching the evening news, I thought, “how can we ‘see’ language differently to stop this insanity?” And suddenly, I saw words in color. I immediately went to the computer and started changing various religious texts. The more sentences I changed, the more excited I became. When I stepped back from the translated sentences, I reflected: “Which one is from the Old Testament”; “Which one is from the Quran”; “Is this sentence from the Adi Granth or the Vedas?” and so on. It was impossible to tell. Like the paintings you see here today, they all looked harmonious and abstract. There were no words to decipher. No family history to tap into. No group to align with. No nation to support. Just the colors and their common configurations. They were beautiful. But most importantly, they reflected peace and love. They revealed the genuine possibility of one humane reality -- if we so desire.

Some process notes:

Each passage painting depicts a randomly selected excerpt from a religious text. Note that I have chosen to leave out the convention of punctuation, but have left the spacing. If the text had a number, it was spelled out."