work after the year 2000 » The Selling of the Golden Calf

oil on birch panel 36″x 66″ (2002)

In Exodus, the golden calf, was a false god created by the Israelites while Moses was on top of Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments. As punishment for such idol worship, the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years. In this painting Fenton draws a parallel between the Biblical golden calf and the idolatry created and encouraged by contemporary consumerism leading to the metaphoric desert of our own making. Fenton references Rembrandt’s Moses with the Table of the Law as a contemporary ghost smashing the tablets in reaction to our new idolatry.