Higher Education II: Star Wars

1985, oil/diptych panel, 48" x 48"

Our contemporary Bellerophon (a mythical horseman who rode the flying horse Pegasus and in arrogance challenged the ancient gods) is a wind-up-toy ham actor who recasts his role to be the magical Pegasus. Thus, he can fly high to stardom and also challenge the gods by defecating bombs in the heavens to search and destroy an "evil empire." His envious wife "behind the throne" feeds him his lines; his secretary of war, atop a nuclear cloud, is unaware that a laser beam has penetrated one ear -- and finding nothing between -- has exited the other. Subordinate wind-up toys proliferate below, surrounding Humanity, who, leaning over backward, is offering a meaningful script of human rights and universal peace.