2007 saw many radical developments and experiments in my painted works. Works from early in the year show a preoccupation with abstract symbols such as circles and spirals, which eventually give way to a De-Kooning-esque "mark", which subsequently gives way again to a deletion of the mark towards highly textured, almost geological works (see 2008 for a description of the Khora series). Works from this year were made oftentimes in response (or perhaps in contradiction) to the artistic environment and trends of the fine-arts institution that I was enrolled in at the time, which emphasized body discourses, gender, identity, and contemporary figurative trends rather than abstract or non-objective works. Subject matter for these works was often concerned with a spiritual "other" or transcendent experience that could be transmitted through the unbridled brushstroke. This theme was emphasized in the middle and later parts of the year. Ranging from energetic and joyous to seemingly compressed and angst-ridden, these works show a number of continuities, discontinuities, and potential evolutions nipped in the bud or revisited, intentionally or unintentionally, many months later. While lacking in a consistent "message" or particular subject matter, these works hold their own places as individually expressive and dynamic pictures, and oftentimes contain themselves prophetic themes that produced later generations of work (one such example being the cave-like "Subterranean Depths with Spirit," which seems to forecast, sans its declarative white circle, the coming of the Khora series nearly a year ahead of the first such work, "Khora #1").