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Man
on Fire
Mark
Vallen 2006
Oil on wood panel
11 3/4" x 23 3/4"
Private collection
Here's
what the artist
said about his painting:
"As
a teenager I saw a reproduction of the mural, Man of
Fire, created in 1938 by the Mexican Muralist, José
Clemente Orozco. The artist had painted a gigantic blazing
man in the cupola of the Hospicio Cabañas, in Guadalajara.
It was an image that had a profound and lasting effect upon
me, but little did I know many years later I would be painting
my own apocalyptic vision of a man on fire.
In
1987, during a mass demonstration in Los Angeles opposing
the visit of the president of Iran to the UN, as well as
voicing disapproval of the Iran-Iraq war, the 31 year old
Iranian writer and antiwar activist Neusha Farrahi committed
suicide by pouring gasoline over his body and self-immolating
before a stunned crowd of thousands.
The
heartbreaking event led me to immortalize Farrahi's martyrdom
in my oil painting - Man on Fire."
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"My
painting is both a metaphor for our times
and an artwork based upon real world events.
The blazing man could be said to represent
suffering humanity engulfed by war and repression
- alluding to the current catastrophes in
the Middle East and elsewhere."
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