Title: The Verdict

From John 3:19 “And this is the verdict, that Light has come into the world, but men received it not.  They preferred the darkness, because their deeds were evil.”

The viewer stands even deeper in the cave in identification with those who are pictured here.  Jesus has come in the almost blinding light of His love, and the people are all turning away in shame and despair and horror.  One man covers his mind with his hand, refusing to even think about Who this is.  With his hand on his wife’s shoulder, he ensures that she also turns away.  Another cringes against the cave wall as the Light touches him, and he screams as if being burned by it.  A pregnant woman covers her face and her belly, turning away not only on her own behalf, but her child’s as well.

This painting began from an inspiration which grew into a sketch of the people ringing the edges of the cave.  There were several more people in the sketch than you see here.  But as I painted, the large face appeared in the bottom right portion of the canvas.  It was unplanned, and I didn’t create it.  Some see it as male and some female.  Obviously ruined, wretched, and filled with utter dismay, this face is the definitive for the whole work.

There are skulls all over the entire picture.  They cover the walls of the cave, some overlapping others.  There are also faces, some merely sad, some howling.  Each of these formed as the painting came about, and not at my conscious rendering.  I did not intentionally create them.  God did.  Most of them were formed exactly as you now see them.  Sometimes when I saw them, He allowed me to clean up a line, or add a tiny bit of color.  I’m not exaggerating.  That’s really all I did.

All of the faces and skulls He put into the painting remain except for two.  There were originally two faces that looked clearly to be demons, and I asked permission to remove them, which He granted.  He also showed me how to more completely incorporate the pregnant figure with the face He created, so that portions of one are also a portion of the other.

The cave we human beings are in is filled with death, while Life stands at the door, beckoning to us to come out.  It is still our choice today, when He is revealed to us, whether we will choose Him or turn away.

Hidden Image Descriptions:

Box 1 Starting at the top of the painting on this side, you can almost look at every single blotch or dark spot and see that it somehow connects with other shapes to form a face or a skull.  Slightly over midway down the side is a very obvious Greek female face.  To give you some idea of how little I was involved consciously in this revealing of faces and skulls, ALL that I did to make her clearer was to ask God if I could make a tiny triangle of dark paint at the corner of her mouth to balance the line with the other side of her mouth.  Just beneath her face is a theatrical mask, half light and half dark.  There are skulls tipped at odd angles and with different ‘expressions’ all along the background.  Before you even look at Box 2, notice that the figure seated facing you at the bottom of the group is actually seated upon a large skull.

Box 2 The tongue and lip of the large, ravaged face are actually two skulls side by side.  There is even a tiny skull at the corner of his/her mouth.  All over this corner of the painting are shrieking, howling faces and more skulls.

Box 3 The entire cave wall is overlapping skulls.  One eye socket belongs to two skulls, or the eye of one is the open mouth of another.  The man feeling burned by the Light is gripping the eye socket of a skull.  Could it be any more obvious that Death fills this cave, or that it might not be a place people ought to stay?

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