MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE
Deer (David Clouse - VRBO) - 14 x 20 - Oil on Canvas
We immerse ourselves in digital and virtual worlds that increasingly take us away from the real. The irrational and bizarre surround us. Artificial intelligence is a new kind of magic. The normal rules no longer apply. People form their own conceptions of truth. It’s possible, even likely, that the technology we are producing will overtake us
Our age of science is a new age of witches and dark magic.
New gods of tech and finance have emerged, endowed with unparalleled wealth and power. They promise to solve all our problems with their technocratic brilliance and amassed wealth. Meanwhile elemental forces roil beneath. Science Fiction and Fantasy are the genres of the present.
These 78 paintings, a new tarot deck, depict many of the leading figures of this new world. They are changing the fields of science, finance, health care, social media, sales, marketing, entertainment, the auto industry, real estate, sex.
They are seers, saints, demons, gods, humans and frauds.
Each painting presents one of these figures as an avatar, a single word of conjuring. They are elemental forces of fire, snow, water, wind, rainbows. Tactile things like meat or hair. Archetypes from history and myth.
Our new gods live in the world of dirt and pigment, they drown underwater, conjure walls of flame, split their bodies apart and rupture their faces with the plague.
These paintings capture hyper-real spaces where emotion and science curl up against each other. Where weather and myth and place and time and dollar bills and desire intersect.