The Nightmare
Acrylic on canvas · 36 × 48 in · 1985
The Nightmare was painted in 1985 following a recurring dream that began in early adolescence. The figure’s raised forearm and fixed gaze register a moment of instinctive defense, as if bracing for an approaching force just beyond the frame. Fragmented form and turbulent motion compress fear, memory, and anticipation into a single psychological space.
The work draws from a long-standing dream of inescapable water—a tidal wave that returns across decades, blurring the line between imagined threat and lived experience. Painted in the basement of the artist’s Long Island home after waking from the dream, The Nightmare reflects an early engagement with deconstructed cubism as a means of confronting internal states rather than external scenes.
