Gorilla at the Gate, 40″ x 30″, acrylic on canvas

As I continue to develop as a painter, I have learned that I should listen to my subconscious, even if it’s not always clear exactly what it is telling me.

People sometimes wonder where I get my ideas as there is rarely any rhyme or reason to my subject matter. If an idea pops into my head, I’ll try and sketch it out – and if I like it enough, I then turn it into a painting.

With this ongoing coronavirus, there has been a lot of gloom and doom always in the news and often on my mind. Thoughts of my own mortality have drifted in – and drifted out.

Though I don’t know where this particular thought came from, the idea of a gorilla at a gate kept entering my mind. Not just once or twice. I’d wake up in the morning and there would be something nagging at me.

It was the gorilla.

Though I’ve never painted a gorilla before, I’ve always been fascinated by them, going back to my days as an animal show announcer at the St. Louis Zoo. Yes, I was the announcer for The Chimpanzee Show, The Elephant Show and The Sea Lion Show. It was great fun and I got to see a lot of these animals on a daily basis during my two summers of announcing the shows.

The Chimpanzee Show was held inside an arena that is no longer there. On the outside of the arena, there were orangutans, chimps and a great big gorilla called Rudy.

Rudy used to love to splash visitors from his wading pool. He would sit quietly next to it, waiting for a crowd to gather and then would saunter off a bit, only to take a running jump at the pool where he would then sweep his arm in and send a giant wave of water out towards the people.

There was knowledge in that gorilla. Perhaps that memory came to me as some sort of symbolic guard at heaven’s gate. (You’ll notice an ‘H’ at the top of the ironwork.)

“Have you been good enough to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?” his stare seems to say.

Certainly I hope that he will let me pass when my time comes.

We all have a day of reckoning awaiting us. And I’m certainly not trying to convey the thought that this is any semblance of what heaven is or what it means to me.

It’s merely an idea that I tried to paint.

My daughter thought the painting represented Harambe, the gorilla that was shot and killed after it grabbed and dragged a 3-year old boy that entered his domain.

That works.

It’s just a painting. How you view it is up to you.

So, what do you think?

In addition to creating advertising and marketing communications by day, I also paint at night. My paintings have now been sold on three different continents and I’m excited about an upcoming solo show at Good Weather Gallery that opens on November 21st and will be on display through January 9, 2021.

If you’re interested, you can order prints of my work on Artfully Walls. You can also order prints as well as get my artwork put onto a variety of items like iPhone covers, pillow throws, tote bags, greeting cards, coffee cups, shower curtains and a wide variety of other items by visiting my other website on Pixels. As if that weren’t enough, more items are now available on Vida on an even wider variety of items – from umbrellas to yoga mats, clothing and jewelry to household items. I also invite you to follow me on Instagram to see work in progress from start to finish!