It is a great honor to display my work today in this magnificent edifice that housed the library around which the University was built, a pantheon to both learning and democracy. As a cycle of paintings, "The Oracle of Tiresias", is meant to be a prophecy...a warning of the looming threat to the same democracy that this building celebrates!
I think of these paintings as visions, rather than pieces of art. Most of this work was initiated back in the 1990's and early 2000's. I saw the last painting of the cycle, "XX. Thus Spoke the Scryer: 'The Lie Ushers Death!'", in great detail in a very vivid dream in 1991. The other paintings revealed themselves more slowly...I have worked on some of these visions intermittently for decades. Worry about threats to our global environment and biodiversity, combined with the menace of authoritarian government, has been darkening my thoughts all these years. Now with this impending election, a double threat to both environment and democracy has reared its ugly face, has festered, and come to a head. It is serendipity that this cycle of work coalesced together finally for this exhibit in Thomas Jefferson's Rotunda in this fateful year of 2024!
— Eddie Pool, scribe, painter, and patriot, 2024 *
* The opinions and ideas in my display may not reflect the thoughts of others of our group, or of the University. These paintings are not for sale. They are meant to be seen as a warning only.
© Eddie Pool — The Oracle Tiresias Surveys the Cataclysm, 14 x 11
© Eddie Pool — Sunrise After the Mass Extinction Event, 10 x 14
© Eddie Pool — Artist Facing Death Sees Beyond the Void, 12 × 16
© Eddie Pool — Edensgarden, on the Brink of Catastrophe, 33.5 × 8, 33 x 21.5, 33.5 × 8
© Eddie Pool — Ukraine in Peril: Canary in Mine, 15.5 x 12
© Eddie Pool — Tiki Torches Guard the Magaden Portal, 16 × 12
© Eddie Pool — A Black Hole Lurks Behind the Orange Mask, 8 × 12
© Eddie Pool — The Prophet at Planetary Tipping Point, 17 x 9
© Eddie Pool — The Seer Scans the Beginning of Days 8 × 12
© Eddie Pool — Chaos, the Destroyer of Worlds, 9 x 5
© Eddie Pool, Satan Manifesting as Flaming Mad Dog's Orange Grin, 12 × 16
© Eddie Pool — Birthing Inspection on Planet Redmaga X, 12 × 16
© Eddie Pool — The Flaming Orange Dines Lustily on Misery Beans, 16 x 12
© Eddie Pool — Primordial Pleasure/Pain Infection Cycle of the Magavirus Microbiota, 14 × 10
© Eddie Pool — After a Brief Tribunal, the Soul of the Heritictator is Ceded Unto Beelzebub, to be Branded and Processed, 14 × 10
© Eddie Pool — Hellscape Illumined by Flaming Orange Swamp Gas Light, 16 × 12
© Eddie Pool — The Time of Choice Is Now, 24 × 48
© Eddie Pool — Christ the Shepherd Comforts a Starving Child, 10 x 8
© Eddie Pool — She Who Lights the Way through Darkness and Danger, 20 x 12
© Eddie Pool — Thus Spoke the Scryer: "The Lie Ushers Death", 14 x 10