A Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, Archie Rand (b. 1949), the Presidential Professor of Art at Brooklyn College, has had more than 100 individual exhibitions. In the series Psalm 68 (1994), he uses abstract iconography to explore one of the oldest extant Hebrew poems and its compelling, if elusive, narrative.

The powerful emotions of Psalm 68—whether in the service of extolling the prowess of the military in battle or the rejoicing in gladness of peacetime—find a proper receptacle in Rand’s paintings. The intense color and black amorphous shapes in some of the canvases echo Surrealist automatic writing; still others feature tantalizing forms that suggest a wide range of images gleaned from an array of sources, including architecture and comic books. Natural, manmade and supernatural elements can also be discerned. Rand’s 36 exuberant 12×16-inch acrylic paintings, some with marker or hand-mixed with resins and acids, provide an impassioned foray into ancient perils–both awesome and delightful.