A door stands slightly ajar. Through it a pencil of light steals across an abruptly rucked carpet – as if someone had just tried to force their way in or out – and up the wall of a darkened room. The glow has a sinister crackle, just bright enough to illuminate the bottom of a large photograph of a military figure. His head is lost in the shadows.
Yet even in this loose painterly transcription of a photo, the stance, bulk and uniform immediately conjure Saddam Hussein. The carpet too, a nearly abstract array of marks, is apparently Arabic. What is happening on the other side of that door, however, might be going on anywhere in the world right now. Or so the picture implies, with its lingering ambiguities of time, place and light. Its title is Meditation Room.
