Orlik lived on 79th West Street for some of his time in New York. The intensity of the painting reflects his experience of the city at the end of his time there and the force of his excitations reveals the magnitude of his troubled thoughts.

The building looms into the sky; there is no remission from it as it towers above the viewer, dark and imposing. The painting requires careful study as images emerge and recede from the mass of shapes. Orlik described the building as being alive; it is made up of people: “people everywhere, compressed together; there is no way of deciphering it, deciphering them. The thoughts are so muddled, so intense. There is no escape, no respite.” He enigmatically described the painting, as being “maybe too much, maybe the message is too much.”[1]

Light and dark figures reveal themselves from the multitude of forms: a figure falls from the top right of the building; silhouetted shapes become a couple embracing - she transforms into insubstantial, living flame within his dark embrace; above them, legs transform into a figure with legs spread wide, and together they form a giant spider with dark triangular mouth; beneath this, a figure stands upright on a ledge, possibly about to jump, possibly about to fly with the suggestion of wings spread out behind. A dark figure leans out of an arched window and, at the same time, rises from his sarcophagus. A figure, on hands and knees, crawls up, scaling, the building and above it, an animal (leopard possibly) slinks up the building. On the upper left section of the building, a white awning opens emitting, from its dark interior, small, dark figures which plummet from the building. They are made up of dark, vigorous excitation brushstrokes, outlined against the misty, murky sky. A ghostly, hooded figure emerges like a mediaeval soldier from the edifice (bottom right), his black eye is stark against his white face and his triangular silhouetted legs reach below; he carries a round, see-through shield subtly emblazoned with the peace symbol. In the foreground, a silhouetted child clings to its parent who wraps its arms around the smaller body.

The building on 79th West Street becomes an edifice which is bigger than itself; it is representative of all buildings everywhere and all lives lived amongst all cities throughout time. It is the allegory of the Tower of Babel, where ideologies rub up against each other, and different languages are spoken, uncomprehending of each other. Interestingly, the shapes seem to arrange themselves like letters, an obtuse jumble of words, meaningless until deciphered and internalised.

A stark white figure, “like a ghost”, stands out prominently from the teeming mass of shapes; he seems restricted, possibly with his hands tied behind his back. (“Maybe I felt like that, washed out, exhausted by it all.”)[2] He appears to be tied to a stake or a tree and the shape of his back and head reveals the silhouette of a bat (he has the devil on his shoulder) but swooping in to pierce his midriff, is a bird (a dove perhaps) which forcefully enters him as shown by three amber-coloured lines showing the momentum of flight. Perhaps this is the moment of artistic (and mystical) inspiration despite (or because of) the intensity and chaos of the scene.

Bottom left, a large eye and eyebrow reveal themselves as dark shapes of a giant face (the second eye rests just beneath the buttocks of the white figure). The face emerges from behind the building and behind the tree-structure which supports the white figure. A grey crown sits atop the face. It is suggestive of the Statue of Liberty and the black-framed sign above, with silhouetted figure inside the picture frame, becomes the Flame of Liberty, held aloft by the Statue; but here, it is dark, boxed in, barred and enclosed. Liberty has been restricted.

The face also becomes the face of Christ, crowned by thorns, the red flow of blood from the thorns seen above the eyebrow and beneath the crown. The sharp thorns are revealed on the top of the tree which supports the white figure and are formed from the silhouette of the bat/devil. The profile of the white figure bears a strong resemblance to a white-skinned figure who stands out in the crowd in Christ Carrying the Cross (by Hieronymus Bosch, or follower of Bosch, c. 1510-1535, Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent). In 79th West Street, New York City, Christ carries the cross which is the burden of all the souls in the building who are representative of all the souls in the world, to his crucifixion. The whole building, therefore, becomes the cross itself reaching into the heavens.

The face is also the face of Orlik himself who, as artist, carries the burden of his teeming mass of thoughts (“so muddled, so intense”[3]) which make up the building. He is the quixotic knight errant who against all the obstacles (the incessant rejections from galleries, the thefts from his apartment, the intensity and intrusion of city life with no money) relentlessly pursues his visionary quest – his art.

[1] Henry Orlik, in conversation, Saturday 31st May 2025

[2] Henry Orlik, in conversation, Saturday 31st May 2025

[3] Henry Orlik, in conversation, Saturday 31st May 2025