‘The Call to Adventure’, the first stage of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, is described in “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” with the following, “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered.”

It is with this in mind that I’ve begun illustrating the first steps of a cycle. This cycle details the quest of a civilization of mimes, examples of universal gesture and language, as they begin their mythic journey into existence. The paintings concentrate heavily on fertility symbols and the ecstasy of life, yet include the tiny presence of death, as death begets life. The focus of these paintings was conceived also with reference to the French term ‘La Petite Mort,’ which equates orgasm with a kind of small death.