GROUND ZERO DRAWINGS

(General description by Roy Lawaetz, Artist)

The Ground Zero series conjures up assimilated pictorial imagery. At times the towers seem attacked from above by armed terrorists, more like military insurgents in Iraq than the actual attackers who used targeted planes to destroy the buildings on Sept 11, 2001.
And the attackers appear hauntingly active even after the apocalyptic crashes---- an ongoing threat in the skyscraper landscape, a ghostly repetitive reality in the mass psyche.

It is as if the Towers tragedy and the Iraq War have come around full circle, blended into one violent encounter in this extensive series. The buildings themselves appear to be riddled by armor piercing bullets and while there is often smoke above these destructive symbols there is an ambiguity that suggest the soft cloudy heavens.

Within this firmament victims and attackers are woven into the deathly spell of conflict. Some of them seem to float timelessly to their doom below as if in a choreographed trance, others have the look of tragic shock or despair. Still others float together downwards, holding hands, like lovers. And in one of the drawings a strident heart and a dove appear like tiny clouds of hope amidst the fragmented destruction. But each individual drawing, about 40 of them, has its own compelling character, though a variant on the single theme.

At times the towers seem more resistant to final doom, in other drawings they seem more vulnerable, less prepared to withstand the onslaught. The structures are variable, some more profoundly damaged, others more upright and intact. Still the evidence of destruction is unmistaken in each and every tower presents a frieze of terror.

In some of the floating figures we are ironically reminded of circus acts, skillful trapeze artists or Olympic athletes that swing from one pole to the other or conquer a hurdle or perform some incredible Olympian feat. But not all the figures have this agility for some are obviously grounded in gravitational conditions---in a desperate fall with only one tragic outcome that cannot be mistaken