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Innocent fun pervades Jupiter C, an altered representation of a dad and son about to launch a model rocket. Against a mottled multicolored background, the purply-blue silhouette of dad, son, and rocket actually shows "the first ICBM missile," says Siegel. "Father and son would bond over something grotesquely beautiful."
Like Siegel's other works, Jupiter C is mounted on a platform, so that the images seem to float into the room. "I think of [my works] as two-dimensional sculptures," says Siegel, "an object, not a flat image."
Flat images were all Siegel saw most of his life, after an injury in one eye led to cataracts. For years he could see only one-dimensional images, until an artificial lens restored his depth perception.
He remembers visiting Delhi Park afterward, mesmerized by some furrowed tree bark that "went in and out . . . in and out
. . ." and draws a parallel between the restoration of his sight and a rekindling of his "dormant, not new" interest in creating art. View the results at Art Search Satellite Space on Main Street from October 18 through November 29.