Provenance:
Phyllis Kind Gallery, Chicago
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1990

Lot Essay:
Spirit of Power, 1989, is a spectral image of a gun, one of many that Paschke made at this time.  It’s an icon of gang violence and societal authority and defense, complicated further by the religious allusion of the INRI inscription and a cross.  Meticulous rendering in several media, applied in succession, invite a visual delayering, as if peeling away the marks will reveal meaning.  At this time Paschke was drawing over washes with ink dots that mimic his method of painting with the tips of small brushes, accumulating tone and illusion without obscuring the illumination from under-layers.  There is a ritualist’s fondness for repetition in his method. It asks the viewer to participate in drawing and to contemplate the deceptive aura of an icon of sudden and terrible violence. 

 

William Conger, Artist; Professor Emeritus,  Art Theory and Practice,  Northwestern University