ANAMNESIS

1997- 99

44x 29.75 inch. (112x 75.5cm)

hours spent working: 311 hrs.

This piece is the first in a trilogy on ancient Chinese history serving as the context for depiction of issues of evolution and animal welfare. (The other two will be "Goddess Liberating Animals from Civilization" and "The Origin of Chinese Civilization".) The scene in the picture is from ancient China, in the middle Shang period (ca. 1500 BC), the late period of tribal confederacy, which is called in Chinese archaeology the Erh-Li-Gang phase. The picture depicts an Shang priest (or high shaman) offering blood to the Generic Ancestor, or God, evoking the oracle of ancestors; but to him appear, instead of the expected series of deceased Shang Kings of the royal lineages, his true (evolutionary) ancestors.

Anamnesis is the classical Greek word meaning "remembering". Here it means: "remembering your ancestry."

Evolution is one of the most spiritual world-view that I believe we can adopt. It teaches that the pets you own, the trees in front of you, and the microbes subsisting on your skin, all at one time share a common ancestor. All living beings around you are in effect your cousins to some degree. Love your family!

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The Perspective Structure of Anamnesis

Some of my drawings are produced via exact scientific measurements. This drawing exemplifies the process. While I was working on Anamnesis, when the measurement was complete I made xerox copies of it before I began to "fill in the details." In this way the perspective structure, or measurement, of the drawing is preserved, which you see here.