ENTROPY SERIES

Paiement's studio in Bath, Maine is in a historic building built in the mid 1850's. In the summer of 2006, a part of the building was renovated. Large pieces of a tin ceiling, quite rusted and patinaed, were tossed out and left behind the building. Paiement confiscated them and started cutting them up with tin shears and bolting them onto a large birch door panel he had laying around. At one point in the process, he turned the panel upside down and Paiement 'saw' a warrior emerge from the shapes. Having recently seen brutal media images of the aftermath of war in the middle east and having his only son about to turn 18 and eligible for the military, Paiement saw an opportunity to make his own anti- war statement. Two years later, what he calls his Entropy Series was completed.

"Entropy 1"
(78" x 80")

As a blunt statement of conflict within our time, there are images of a man and woman making wild, reckless love, a bullet flying through space, pages from the Bible warning of the doom and destruction of war, and Hebrew lettering for "I Am." There are blood splatters and anguished faces locked in screams. Racial epitaphs race across the panel, which measures more than 6 feet across and just as tall. A small section of barbed wire creates an instant image of repression. Paiement mentions two artists when talking about this work -- Francisco Goya, the Spanish artist known for his uncompromising scenes of war; and a mentor from the University of Iowa, printmaker Mauricio Lasansky.

"Entropy 2"
(78" x 90")

Paiement used pictures from books and magazines and created a visual buffet of the world's have and have-nots, with the elite living lush lives atop gilded mountains, their waste trickling down to the poor below. It's about the degradation of the environment, the scourge of consumption and the economic contradictions that are present from one neighborhood to another. Simultaneously, there is hope. Amid the squalor, a couple is embraced in a lusty dance. And despite their poverty, the poor children still have a capacity for joy.

"Entropy 3"
(78" x 95")

Two images dominate "Entropy.3" - the miracle of birth and final frontier, represented with an unborn child, star fields and space travel. On one hand, he is commenting on the pure miracle of life. On the other, he is marveling at man's ability to explore and explain the deepest complexities of our known world.