“Behold!” – Richard Bledsoe oil on canvas 30″ x 36″

“I heard the second beast say, ‘Come and see.’ And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him…” – Revelation 6:3

This painting was started at my former studio space at the Paper Heart in 2007. When that venue closed the painting was moved in an unresolved state to my current studio Deus Ex Machina, and became the first oil painting completed there in early 2008.

This was the first work in what I refer to as my Bestiary-a series of original paintings focused on the animal as allegory.

The love of nature channeled through the symbolizing imagination. The acknowledgement of feelings stirred by beasts-the contradictory sense both of kinship and utter, unknowable difference. The assignment of moral attributes and spiritual significance to creatures of primal instincts. A tribute to life’s bizarre and powerful manifestations.

Sold to a private collector in June 2012.