Dear Peter
I find this piece to be a startling entry and very different from your earlier works.
"Why, John?"
You are no stranger to figure-ground relationships and the range to which you employ them- from the nearly indistinguishable to close chromatic harmonies. Usually there is a melding, a meeting, a crossing point between the foreground and the background where they inform each other and crossover.


This piece operates as two distinct and separate visual physical planes and characters overlapping. The background operates in monochrome, black and white, with what one might read as a low level of distinction and no specific forms, as an archeological flattened residue of what once was. The foreground is wildly aggressive and emotionally holds and overrides everything. Between the foreground /background there is no common ground. With the enormous scale change, there is no conceivable meeting between these two planes/orbits.
The actions in the foreground are aggressive, very large, and decisive. (The visual and political ramifications are found in an awareness to action paintings... under a microscope). As a viewer I am thrown right into this situation, first person, so my personal perception, involvement and relationship has shifted.. And I am asked, visually, psychologically, existentially, how in hell are these two orbits going to coexist?
Perhaps your point, Peter, is that we are witnessing history repeat itself through the lens of the endlessness of war.
For me this is a major piece of art. The expression of your voice is resonant and clear.
The separation of the past ( the base/bottom visual layer) has been overwhelmed with the violence you have unleashed
over it.
Indeed dear man we are, as your title translates: Moving Forward Backward
Congratulations. This is jaw dropping.
John Reiff Williams