Holy Cross (1985)

Holy Cross is the first in a series of video paintings that Fitzgerald generated with the Fairlight Computer Video Instrument and then manipulated in real time. Fitzgerald writes that "Holy Cross encompasses apocalyptic images of religion, repression and universal destruction, with the underlying question, 'Is religion salvation or an age-old provocateur of death and destruction?'" Highly gestural, at once vividly colorful and ominously dark, this work reveals the gesture of the human hand through a maelstrom of electronic brush strokes evocative of Expressionist painting.