"Conflamingulation" – British Library, Euston Road, London, England

David Normal is a San Francisco painter and animator. Born in 1970, he is the son of Paul Butterfield Blues Band keyboardist, Mark Naftalin. Normal’s "Crossroads of Curiosity" is a suite of murals that extends the notion of a "cabinet of curiosity." The traditional cabinet of curiosity is a rectilinear arrangement of objects displayed in glass cases. Normal’s version seeks to encompass the world in a series of dramatic tableaux featuring provocative juxtapositions of vastly different times, places, and peoples. Normal used Victorian Era book illustrations exclusively from the digitized collection of the British Library to create the artwork. Beginning as black and white collages, the four pieces were developed into 8’ x 20’ lightbox murals that were arrayed around a common base.

"Conflamingulation" is a portmanteau neologism meaning: "Somewhere between Conflagration and Confabulation lies Conflamingulation." It is derived from the words; "Confabulate," "Copulate," and "Flamingo." Conflamingulation depicts the sublimation of aggression into absurdity. The violent impulse is transformed into a harmless charade in a cavern intermediate between the Biblical (Elijah’s Cave of the School of the Prophets in Jerusalem), and the Classical (the Tepidarium of the Forum Bath of Pompeii). Here within this paradigmatic interregnum, the causes, mechanisms, and consequences of war are dissolved as though they were drugs being added slyly to wine to intoxicate unknowingly the viewer of the painting. If you look closely, you can see images of:

the biblical Naomi, crying the tears of every woman who has lost the men of her life to war;
a Maxim Gun and a Gatling gun (early machine guns that were the state of the art in late 19th-century firearms.);
- a flamingo
- Skunks;
- a Gentleman;
- a Hornbill; and
- Moai statues from Easter Island