The Sun

5' x 5', Oil on Canvas

So often I see depictions of the sun as a benevolent force of nature. Solar deities exist in almost every polytheistic religion and are usually the primary god to be worshiped. The sun gods protect against the evils lurking in darkness, decide whether there is a good harvest, cure disease, and often are responsible for love, sex, fertility as well. What's more, for many religions the sun gods are either mother or father to all lesser gods. Everything stems from the sun.

Independently, early humanity intuitively understood that the sun was providing earth with life long before they could understand the process. Yet there's a cost for these gifts of life. The sun is a fire that must always have something to burn; the cost of the creation of all life is the necessary destruction of all life.

With this painting I wanted to show the malevolent side of the sun. It gives and takes with equal abandon.