James Iannone

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PESTILENCE
2023-24



Microscopic balls of a virus from a pangolin in China that was too close to a sick bat. Looking into the microscope we might see anxiety like dark matter swirling around like microbes. I use Simple symbology that shows a way to explain the complicated world of ‘emotional science’. 

An eldritch cloud descending into our view with unspeakable horror. Our own demise swirling around with an ancient atavistic uncertainty, “it’s in the air” is what I heard. A lovecraftian miasma, a storm cloud of pure evil wafting in like a fog. 

I wanted to make something big, bigger than myself. Large canvases. A traditional approach to something new. Like the old masters tasked with a commission to take on a recent event of their time that was tragic. Looking at the very first image that went public of a lung scan that was riddled with the effects of COVID-19. I saw a monument to doom like no other. A clarion call to what was to come. I felt the need to carry out a series of paintings that dealt with the greater anxiety we all were feeling. A catharsis, maybe cliché but a catharsis nonetheless. It had to happen. It was the only way I could deal with what was happening to me, my family, my friends and the whole world.



©1987—2023

Providence, Rhode Island