Charles Riley

Video

Acrylic, marble dust, toys, computer parts applied to canvas for September 11 Meditation.
I lived in NYC for 15 years not far from the trade towers in The West Village and Chelsea. Got married. Moved to the Bronx; then Fredericksburg, Virginia. Was working in DC when 9/11 and the slaughter of innocents occurred. My brother-in-law was doing business in a building next to one of the trade towers when the planes hit. He had to walk home to Brooklyn in raining ash. It's a sad human trait that we can find pride in the demonization and destruction of innocent people. What a horrifying thought that many people can rationalize hate filled destruction. I thought it appropriate to use a toy airplane because the hijackers reminded me of children in a tantrum. They saw people as insignificant and small, like shadows of real people, targets of their impotent lashing out like childish bullies. Communication equipment, what connects, was destroyed and meaningless without human connection. Marble dust is a monument to death, white and cold and empty with the sense of loss.