This 4′ x 8′  piece of  shallow relief sculpture is mounted on four reinforced hardboard-surfaced panels that can be separated for easy relocation. In fact, I had no motivation for creating this project other than using up remnant supplies left over from building projects while creating a portable “pseudo-mural” for a large empty wall in in my own house — see the Palazzo (2013-2016) project.

The formal concept for the piece came to me in something like a daydream: concentric shallow ridges in a rough, mud-like material, curving about a central circle with another surface treatment. I experimented with digital mock-ups (CAD and Photoshop on a laptop computer) where that central circle was gold-leafed in various patterns, or enclosed a plaster-modeled map of a lunar surface, or both.

But with the vague memory of some Japanese or Korean porcelain as inspiration, I quickly settled on a Dutch metal-leafed, slightly-raised grid (the raised portions composed of old Sheetrock joint compound and glue), with the faux-gold leaf rubbed lightly back to reveal the bright red house-paint ground.

First, though, I used a giant “comb” made of scrap wood that pivoted about a center post to coax the trowel-applied layer of stiff artificial mud (made from old tile grout, plaster-of-Paris, glue, black house-paint, and sawdust) into the correct orbits about that center circle.

So what does it all mean, beyond the odd combination of techniques and materials? I considered several possible titles (it is my cynical observation that meaning in art, such as it is, is largely a product of its title):

• “Blind Eye”
• “Singularity”
• “Klingon Home Furnishing” (one of my younger relatives suggested that all of my artistic endeavors fit in this unlikely category)
• “Nine Inch Nails Album Cover”

Eventually, I decided to imagine that I had chosen the most appropriate of these, or perhaps of some other set of potential names, and I left it at that. But sometimes, when I sit at the table with my back to this piece, I have the sensation that the gate to the infernal plane is opening behind me.