The Temples are Burning

• 7 x 18 inches
• © 2012
• Oil on Linen
• Framed

The subjects stand as compromised martyrs, moments frozen in time.  Pacifists, they were once observers and are now the eternally observed. Stolid, cold marble with fixed emotion, they bear the changing seasons and cycles of time uncelebrated, unobtrusive but exposed. They are effigies from a lost age, relics of a classical system and now they stand as monuments to modern decay.  These are our gods, our flawed icons, our higher aspirations of self, whose cold marble bears the weight of time more slowly than the flesh, but nevertheless suffer as we suffer and bleed as we bleed.

Bradley Platz’ intricate oil paintings deal with the alternating nature of worship in the modern age. Using classical symbolic imagery from old world traditions and transposing subtle hints of modernity, his work might best be described as tarnished elegance.  Ever present also are certain whimsical and subtle symbols that carry the viewer through his body of work as a reader through a story, or a craft on the sea. 

Purchase the 'Blood & Marble' catalog here: http://www.moderneden.com/collections/blood-marble/products/blood-marble-catalog