New Work: Pater Noster

 

This is a more obviously  personal  work than I usually make, the Pater Noster above is less the Lord’s Prayer and more directly “our father”, which is how my siblings and I address the man that sired us- never “dad”, etc.  Inherently resistant to public psychoanalysis it is enough to say that my father was a troubled man, a frequently, shockingly violent man, who could smile one moment and fly into a brutal rage the next. Needless to say fatherhood did not suit him very well , yet he had six children with my mother, I am the oldest, and went on to sire other families with other women. We are now irrevocably estranged, have been for at least forty years. Yet he haunts my dreams, positioning himself as both a fearsome tormentor and ambiguously attractive figure. Again, public psychoanalysis I will pass on, allowing the painting to speak for itself .

The image depicts one particularly painful memory, the brutality  of the incident further scarred with humiliation for my younger brothers, always eager  to curry favor with this mercurial figure, took great delight  in my debasement. My father’s fury became more focused upon me as I entered adolescence , I was developing into a more obviously gay boy, my mannerisms most likely more fey than my military bred  father could tolerate. I struggled profoundly with the horror of being homosexual, being a devout Catholic , I arranged mid-week confessions for the faintest of “impure thoughts”.  I confessed as well my struggles with my brothers. 

In what seemed a stunning betrayal they immediately revealed to my father all I’d confessed. Like a raging bull he stormed into our shared bedroom and the beating began, the humiliation enhanced in being told to strip down. The howls of laughter as the pummeling went on ring in my ears to this day.

 I hope with this painting as testament that ringing mutes, such is my aim, for the making and the unusual explaining of my work.

 

Tender moments must have been shared between us, I was his first born, he was a young man, this photo of the two of us attests to that. (Although I am a Junior to his Leonard Greco Sr., I was called Toby.)

I see even in this sweet memento the Minotaur in the wings.