By: James Groleau

Medium: Mezzotint
Imagesize: 7 x 5 inches
Edition of 50

Passion IV is part of James Groleau’s Blood Bone Elegy, a series conceived in the months following the September 11 attacks and focused on an allegorical struggle between Life and Death. Dark, grasping hands rise into a blood-red sky as birds scatter overhead, their flight caught between panic and escape.

The image suggests fervor tipping into violence—emotion unmoored from reason and driven upward into collective action. Groleau uses stark silhouettes and turbulent color to convey a moment when passion no longer resists destruction, but becomes one of its instruments.