"Decide and Conquer"

I've just completed the largest painting I've done in many years.  I last mentioned this panel a few entries ago in "Works in Progress, November 2011: Part One."  At that time, my intention was essentially to paint a big pink and black flower.  When I started getting going on it though it turned into something else entirely. I originally spoke about the panel used in the piece way back in April in "White Birch Paralysis." At the beginning, I was totally intimidated by the very idea of painting it at all, so this one's come a long way.

The picture to the left here is a detail of the piece.  The Pink Bunny, Gilded Axe in hand, is faced with a choice between descending into the square hole in the ground and blazing a trail through the brambles ahead.

In this moment he considers each option, fingering the axe, eyes fixed firmly on the golden light beyond the tangled thicket. 

"Decide and Conquer" Jason Burrell 2011
Acrylic on Wood Panel: 24" x 36"

The square hole is no rabbit hole- no place he wishes to go- and yet it beckons to him, being the easier of the two choices.  Naught to do but fall and hope the end comes sudden- unexpected. 

Hacking through the thicket- thin enough to do so only just at the edge of the square hole- promises to be an exhausting, all-encompassing labour.  However, only this way will ultimately lead him to the light.

I've chosen to call this piece "Decide and Conquer." The Pink Bunny can conquer himself by overcoming his weaknesses and persevering or by giving up and throwing himself in the pit. The decision is his and his alone.

Like much of my work lately, this painting is a fairly transparent and possibly over-dramatic exercise in self-portraiture.  I suppose this is only natural with all the changes I've made in my life recently, many of them born of a realization that one needs to earn his dreams if he wants to live them. 

I plan to have "Decide and Conquer" on display at my show next month at 29 Newbury.  I'll post more details about that show as I get them.  For now, I have about a dozen paintings to complete before Christmas so it's off to work I go!