Tower of Babel

This was the first of my works that James Kasper commissioned for his collection of biblical art.

For The Tower of Babel I was influenced primarily by the Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Bruegel’s interpretation of this scene has a lot of detail both within and surrounding the tower. His is an entertaining work of art — a layer cake of cacophony.

My own personality is evident in my drawing — humor, abstraction, sarcasm — as well as my background in the church. My Tower of Babel has junked cars, a fire hydrant, silhouettes of my wife, a few friends, and myself in the “apartment” windows. There are missiles ready to send warheads to destroy the world, or else to fly astronauts to distant planets. Humor and tension in the same image. That’s life, I think. Without the humor one cannot expect to survive the tension. And in front of it all is a child flying a kite. Ignoring the horror behind. The tattered dome is a dilapidated representation of the Vatican’s.