Moloch II (& Process)
Beguin in 2019
Moloch II, oil on canvas is a large-scale oil painting that I began in 2019. Initially begun as a protest painting specifically in response to the gun violence in the United States and Chicago, and specifically in response to shootings in schools.
However, after beginning (and prior to the pandemic) I painted a large orange sphere beside the abstracted swastika/cruciform central figure, which I envisaged as a malevolent force in place of the shooter (and an abstraction of the id-force character Zed Molinger in my Our Hero comics series). Shortly after doing so, the COVID-19 pandemic began, and it seemed more than coincidental, so I took a pause in working on the painting to consider how what began as a protest painting might comment on the larger state of the fallen world.
Work on Moloch II is ongoing.
