THE AKEDAH TRIPTYCH 2003 Three Panels, each 4 feet H x 4 feet W x 2 inches D Acrylic and Mineral Particles on Wood This major work is comprised of three panels, each depicting a sacrificial form confined within the finely raised delineation of a "four horned" altar on a polished bone-black field, and addresses the theme of the Sacrifice of the Beloved Son. The cadmium red suffused images intentionally evoke the corporeality, the fire, and the transmutation of the filial offering. The bone black alludes to the primordial impulses and their psychic resonances. The altar represents the ground of atonement and transfiguration; the four horns signify the Four Cardinal Points, an allusion to the universal and the infinite. The Sacrifice of the Beloved Son forms the psycho-religious foundational ground upon which the three Abrahamic monotheisms exist and contend. The energies, anxieties and tensions of this cultural paradigm resonate in the collective subconscious of the individual and in the collective social bodies of religion and state. The powerful ambiguities inherent in this image have been an inspiration to Western and Near Eastern artists since the third century AD. This work is conceived of as a meditational cynosure, containing within it confluent visual allusions to the animal, the Lamb of God, and the human, The Beloved Son.