Birds of a Feather Flock Together

In this painting, from my series: A Most Ordinary Apocalypse, I imagine a world where desire, denial, and myth entwine beneath the flicker of a neon motel light. Set in a roadside room as the sun sets on a Sinatra-era Las Vegas, the painting captures a moment suspended between spectacle and ruin. At its center, a red-haired stripper meets the viewer’s gaze with poised confidence as her feathered boa twists into serpents - a metamorphosis blurring seduction with danger. Around her, I’ve gathered a cast of postwar archetypes quietly performing their complicity: a man glances up from his Pravda newspaper with weary amusement while his wife offers cocktails like communion. I wanted the painting to feel both intimate and allegorical - a dreamlike world where the erotic and the apocalyptic sit and dance under the same low ceiling.