Portfolio > Work History

'The Vision of St. Augustine' is a painting obviously indebted to my Tuscany travels. Botticelli did a predella painting of this subject but I, in the folly of youth, thought I could improve on the image. St. Augustine was walking on the beach thinking about how he could explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity to his flock. He came upon a boy shoveling water out of a hole with a spoon, and he asked the boy what he was doing. The boy said he was scooping up the ocean. The Saint said with a smile, 'That's impossible'. 'Not as impossible as what you're trying to do' the boy said, and disappeared. I enjoyed painting the ghost image- making the child 'disappear'. I was also working on a painting series at the time which I thought of as 'Problems With Religion', and to me this painting seemed to echo that idea.