ALHAMBRA POLLOCK - Arab-Islam-West AMITY by fusing Islamic Art & American Abstract Expressionism

"Alhambra Pollock" is a huge painting conflating brilliant Medieval, pure Islamic geometrical Art with the post-WW2 American Abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/140... . If such cultural extremes can be fused in a beautiful painting then there is NO excuse for the current hatred and violence. WORDS having failed, can the hatred and violence be stopped by Beauty, Amity and Love?

27 April 2007 was the 70th anniversary of the Nazi German and Fascist Italian destruction of the Basque town Guernica.

The bombing of Guernica prompted Pablo Picasso to paint his huge painting “Guernica” for the 1937 Paris Exposition. “Guernica” has become THE iconic anti-war painting – and competes with Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” as THE iconic painting of the 20th century.

Last year, in response to the devastation of the town of “Qana” in the Israeli War on Lebanon, I painted a huge work “Qana” that is geometrically related to “Guernica” in having a “double Golden Rectangle” underlying geometry but is one third the size of Picasso’s masterpiece and also differs in being very colourful and deliberately painted so that it will not scare children (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9547/26/).

Just as the world IGNORED Picasso’s cry of PAIN in “Guernica” and plunged into the atrocity of WW2, so the world today IGNORES the protests of like-minded folk over the horrendous carnage in Bush’s ongoing War on Terror that is in harsh reality a War on Women and Children – the post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories now total 1.0 million and 2.4 million, respectively; the post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.5 million and 1.0 million, respectively; and the refugees total 4 million and 3.7 million, respectively.

WORDS having failed (even the words of great people such as UK Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter) and with the failure of polemical ART (such as Picasso’s “Guernica” and my humble offering of “Qana”), I have turned to huge CULTURAL CONFLATION PAINTINGS for Arab-Islam-West Amity.

I am an Australian scientist, academic and writer and published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). I am currently editing a completed book on global avoidable mortality for publication (numerous articles on this matter can be found by a simple Google search for "Gideon Polya" and on http://globalavoidablemortality.blo... , http://gpolya.newsvine.com/ , http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpo... and http://mwcnews.net/content/view/137... ).

As an alternative to such dispassionate scientific analysis on behalf of humanity, I have finally turned to painting some huge paintings demanding respect for Woman and Mother and Child:
Sydney Madonna: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/108... ,
Manhattan Madonna: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/107... ,
Truelove: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/110... ,
Qana: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9547/26/ and, most recently,
Alhambra Pollock: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/140... .

I have created a huge, colourful painting “Alhambra Pollock” that conflates ravishingly beautiful , pure, non-representational, geometric, Medieval Arabic-Islamic Art with the radical, post-war abstract expressionism of American Jackson Pollock. This painting was also inspired by the Golden Rectangle (Da Vinci Code) geometry of Italian Renaissance and subsequent painting and by exquisite Australian Aboriginal rock Art (Bradshaw Figures) of over 17,000 years ago (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/140... ).

The message of this cultural conflation is that if these extreme cultural differences can co-exist in a beautiful painting then there is NO excuse for the hatred, racism and war devastating the Planet and diverting Man from the acute problems of nuclear weapons, global warming and global poverty.

I have painted “Qana” and “Alhambra Pollock” PURELY for public exhibition in the furtherance of Peace, Justice and Reconciliation. Please pass on this Message and the Images of these and related PAINTINGS FOR PEACE to all your friends and associates. Surely LOVE can find a way (for these and related paintings such as “Manhattan Madonna”, “Sydney Madonna”, “Melbourne Madonna” and “Truelove” see the ethical and humanitarian MWC News:
– http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9547/26/ ,
– http://mwcnews.net/content/view/140... and
– http://mwcnews.net/content/view/137... ).