“Six Heads express six human emotional states, including joy, sorrow, anger, fear, and awe. The final emotive realm, represented by the face located in the lower right-hand corner, is one of sleep or dreaming. As the other frames progress through their emotional transitions and return to a state of calm or rest with eyes closed, the face in the sixth frame opens his eyes for the first time. His gaze is a reminder that sentience is a constant and essential component of human life. Some part of us always remains awake.”
“In our daily lives emotions rise to the surface in sucession, evoked by the changing situations and circumstances we find ourselves in. In looking at the old painter’s studies, I was fascinated by the idea that these individual states could somehow exist side by side, simultaneously.
Watching the finished piece, I realized that this seemingly artificial situation has a correlative in nature. The imagery in 'Six Heads' acknowledges that who we are cannot be accurately captured by a single face at a single moment in time. We are comprised of many faces and many selves that we carry with us and unfold, one by one, in time.”
This was not easy for Viola’s performer, Tom Fitzpatrick, an experienced stage actor who knew how to play emocional extremes, but who had been working in the more intimate media of film and TV where a more subtle range of facial expression is called for.
“He was uncomfortable,” Viola said, “and ironically, for the piece to work, I had to push him to the extremes, to what he felt to be overacting. A piece like this is about the cumulative efects of stark, primary colors. There’s no room for shades of gray.”
