NEW PAINTING: “The Mystifier” 16x20 Oil on Panel 2026

“The Mystifier” series painting 2/9.

The object that would be later called the Mystifier descended from the clouds and landed in the town of Crow during the time of the Linterget Troll Festival. The strange machine possessed the ability to change its size and color, and to some degree its shape, although it seemed to favor a pyramidal form. 

Through some unknown magicks it projected an unending array of vivid holographic imagery--literally mystifying and entrancing the town’s residents for hours on end. It showed dancers, musicians and magicians, cats, bats, lewd nudes, men fighting, kids crying, cute things, gross things, pickles, toes, and unknown lands… but more often than not, it showed people talking. Talking directly to the people of Crow as if they were experts or friends. And the person they saw the most was maybe not a person at all, but something else. It called itself Chaz Throckmorton and claimed to be a “Future Human”. He said that the pyramidal object was his, that long ago his company had built it, and bragged that he was exceedingly rich, immortal, and a genius. 

What he failed to mention and what the citizens of Crow would later find out, was that Chaz Throckmorton was an attention-vampire. 

BEHIND THE VEIL:

In the preliminary drawing, I had the Mystifier projecting an array of various faces and things related to the tarot suits...but that didn’t quite fit. I knew that the Mystifier projected all kinds of imagery, but I had the hardest time deciding. At one point it projected an owl with a candle over its head, to represent knowledge, but that didn’t quite work either. Eventually I landed on the future human, Chaz Throckmorton, who will be appearing more later in the series.

I love a good juxtaposition, in this case: oldtimey people placed next to a space vampire.