THE ART OF C. W. BURWELL III
OMEN -2000
The premonition painting, Omen, is posted with a brief explanation at www.september11news.com under the heading Early Warning Signs and was also published in John Marquardt's book, Premonitions of September 11. For several years after the attacks, images of Omen could be found at many domestic and foreign 9/11 websites and other sites reporting unusual phenomena. With the exception of a short video I made showing the progression of work on this piece, there were no televised news reports, personal interviews or documentary film about Omen.
Omen 60 x 84 acrylic on canvas...painted between March, 2000 - September, 2000
Translation of article from Portuguese website Acidezmental
In the day 5 of September of 2001, the Irishman Zak Martin it described a frightening vision: " In the last week, I had a very clear premonition of an aeroplane – looked to a commercial aircraft of passengers – colliding in a sky-scraper and exploding on fire. I think that it is in the United States – possibly Chicago ”. Martin's report was sent for the Register of Psychological Premonitions, a respected entity of parapsychology of the United Kingdom. Six days later, you do not punish one, but two commercial aeroplanes were played against the twin towers of the World Trade Center, in New York.
Since one knows, both exploded and covered of fire and smoke the highest buildings of that country, which finished collapsing and becoming a battery from glass, concrete and steel. Coincidence? Foresight of the future?
When it is taken into account what Martin, nothing had to do with to Al Qaeda, the terrorist accused group of promoting the attack, and it counted the dream almost one week before the tragedy, the history quickly was turned into a rung case of precognition. Phenomenon more frequent of the paranormality, precognition is the name what the parapsychologists give for the premonition, the prior knowledge of the future without data of the present that allow the deduction of what it is going to happen. Every day, tens persons report facts of this type. Many people fall in the oblivion, without never being confirmed. Others materialize, with an amazing perfection of details, and fill pages of newspapers, magazines, books and sites of parapsychology. The more universal the history, the easier of gaining fame.
It is what it happened with the American painter Charles Burwell. In September of 2000, he ended painting a picture in surrealist style of 60 for 84 centimetres. The work had everything to remain anonymous out of the group of the plastic arts, it was not a gentle detail: instead of clocks melted like those of Salvador Dalí, Burwell it drew the image of a covered building because it seems to be a cloud of smoke in the form of ice cream of cornet, standing out in the horizon of a metropolis.
Exatamente one year later, the painter himself was surprised with the similarity between the fabric and the photographies of the twin towers burning, when all was published in the world. “ The symbolism of my painting reminded of me almost immediately 11 of September ”, it wrote oartista in his personal site. “ Even after this tremendous coincidence, I am not certain if I have or not precognitive skills. ”
Independently of the explanation, the fabric was baptized of Omen, or “ sign “, in Portuguese. At last, can Burwell have had a precognition? Can anyone foresee the future before his eyes? “ The parapsychological faculties, all have, but nobody dominates them ”, affirms the priest Oscar Gonzalez-Quevedo, one of the most controversial parapsychologists of Brazil. So, at a moment of imbalance, high fever, headache or dream, you might see in detail something that is still going to happen. Since it wraps fortíssimas doses of emotion, the precognitions normally are made a list to accidents, disasters and bad news in general.