SKULL SERIES

As veterans, we have had to quickly get comfortable with the inevitability of our own mortality. At 18 and 19 years old we select the beneficiaries for our life insurance policies. We spend our young adulthood training for war.  If fate taps us on the shoulder, we fight. Throughout history and across civilizations skulls have represented mortality. For this reason I chose skulls to be my first study. Four art pieces in total will make up the series. I chose four pieces as a tribute to the four Marine Fire Team within the infantry.  

My goal is to remain authentic to roots of service to country and to each other.  I want to maintain a connection to our world through art.  I had spent years drawing detailed range cards and personal sketches on my field sketch kit as a Marine Scout Sniper during training and in combat.  Having actually drawn on MRE paperboard during the Iraq invasion, I thought it to be meaningful that the actual canvas be just as much part of the art as the content and detail of the rendering itself.  As I sit now writing this Artist Statement, I am reminded of good and bad times eating MREs with my Marine family.  The jokes, jabs, complaints and dreams of my brothers were often shared while sitting together baking in the sun or shivering in the cold while we ate chow together either in the field or in harm’s way. 

The backbone of the Marine Corps is the 0311 Infantry Rifleman. Every Marine billet is designed to support the 0311.  I thought it fitting that the first piece be a tribute to the 0311 with 311 giclée prints made available.  This first piece helped me to curate the entire series and subsequent series to come. 

The HOG (Hunter of Gunmen) is an icon of my Alma Mater, Marine Scout Sniper School. This rendering is a tribute to the HOG with its ghillie suit and .50 cal SASR (Special Applications Scoped Rifle). I painted the HOG at the 1st MARDIV Scout Sniper School house at Camp Pendleton after I returned from the Iraq Invasion. Now almost 17 years later I artistically revisited this icon that inspired me as a young 0311 Infantrymen. 317 giclée prints will be made available. This is also a tribute to the 0317 (former 8541) MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) designator for Marine Scout Snipers.

 Many years ago I came across a photo taken of a machine gunner during the Vietnam War. He gazes back and patrols forward while resting the weight of his M60 machine gun with a belt of 7.62 ammo over his right shoulder.  I don’t know who he is or if he even survived his tour of duty.  He has a smirk on his face that I now understand.  When I look back at photos from when we fought in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that same smirk and swagger have been carried forward by the next generation of warriors.  It reminds me of a quote from the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, “Death smiles at us all, but all a man can do is smile back.”  

I spent months trying to capture that same posture, swagger and gaze.  I would look at the photo and with my wife’s help, tried to pose an anatomical skeleton wearing full kit from the Global War on Terror.  I took hundreds of photos experimenting with different studio light settings until I felt that I was able to recapture that one hundredth of a second point in time in the life of that young machine gunner on patrol in Vietnam.  In his honor and that of many others, I hope you enjoy this rendering and thank you for listening to our story as I try to illustrate it as best as I can.

331 double sided giclée prints will be made available.  This number is a tribute to the 0331 MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) designator for Marine Corps Infantry Machine Gunner. 

The 4th and final art piece of the Skull Series will be an oil painting on canvas.  It will be visually inspired by a personal photograph taken in Babylon, Iraq during the invasion in 2003. In keeping with the Skull Series, the art will take cues from photographs of the catacombs of Paris.  More details to come.