Their Wine is the Poison of Dragons

"Their Wine is the Poison of Dragons" takes its title from Deuteronomy 32:33 — the verse that gives the ancient accusation its most vivid form. The phrase carries the weight it needs to: poison dressed as sustenance, the system's offering that is already doing its damage before you understand what it is.

This was the second major gouache work Banker completed, made during a period in which the formal language of his practice was being established from the ground up. What looks from the outside like a period of stylistic development was, from the inside, a year of sustained commitment to figuration and color logic under conditions that required persistence without external reinforcement. The work marks the close of that year.

The painting is pivotal — not in the sense of a breakthrough that made later work easier, but in the sense of a work that holds the full weight of what it cost to arrive at it. The figure carries that history in its surface. Made on 300 lb cold press, which gives the work a physical density that matches its atmosphere.