Time to Die

People that know me well, know that Blade Runner is my all time favorite movie. It wasn't always that way. In fact up until a few years ago I always told people Empire Strikes Back was my favorite movie, but as I've gotten older my appreciation for Blade Runner has grown the more I've watched it. Like do you ever see a movie and you're like "I want to go there."? That's how it is for me and that movie. Even though it's overcrowded, smog filled, and full of acid rain, the city of Los Angeles in 2019 seems like a place I'd like to live. Plus they have cool umbrellas. Anyway, here's a new piece I just finished titled "Rick Deckard Witnesses Roy Batty's Soul Rising to Heaven". A few years back there was an exhibition of medievel art at the Dayton Art Institute that got my neurons firing as far as imagery and history. It occurred to me that it would be funny if some far off future civilization or maybe an interstellar visitor came across some of the pop culture art of recent times and how they might confuse that for our actual history. And with the recent mash-up art there might even be further confusion i.e. Star Wars stuff mixed with Lord of the Rings, etc. but thats a whole other discussion. So I started thinking about some of my favorite movies and how to interpret by way of medieval religious art and in some cases how despite what really happened, the depiction doesn't necessarily show the correct or whole story. The first one I did was inspired by a statue I saw in the exhibit of St. Michael slaying the devil, but in this case Darh Vader defeating Obi-Wan Kenobi titled "Lord Vader vanquishes the Rebel Terrorist Obi-Wan Kenobi". It just struck me that Darth Vader wouldn't want his fight with his old master to be depicted the way it really happened with Obi-Wan basically allowing himself to be destroyed, so instead I portrayed him as physically having Obi-Wan under his boot defeated. I ended up doing the final on a Darth Vader blank cover.

I sketched up a few more ideas including a Taxi Driver one and this one that I FINALLY completed of one of my favorite scenes from Bladerunner.