10.02.2026 - "Heart Murmur"
My uncle, Mike Donohoe, passed away in Albuquerque this week.
Mike was an extremely intelligent and interesting dude who overcame some unfathomable challenges in his life.
He drove the last yellow taxi in the Southwest, wrote under the name Kane S. Latranz, enthused about the paranormal, and found peace in painting.
He's sorely missed by my mother, their siblings, his son, and the rest of us.
I've reposted some work he shared here last year. The words are his as well.
-JA
Mike Donohoe, Guest Artist
[find him on Bluesky: @kane4748.bsky.social]
The black and white devilish chap in the black suit and hat is inspired by "Colonel Mortimer," a character played by Lee Van Cleef in The Good the Bad and the Ugly. I sometimes paint in black on a white background. It has a feeling of paper and ink. I miss the hey day of print media, especially physical magazines and newspapers. Though the trees benefit from the transition to electronic media.
The shirtless long haired cat in the lotus position in a night scene, a girl's face looking on in the moon, is inspired by the movie, "The Wolverine." A departure among the X-Men movies in which Logan (Wolverine) regrets his immortality as everyone he cared about has died. Cheery stuff. Lol. "St. Wolverine."
The crows flying against a blue sky between black silhouetted trees is another study in black. Made on blue posterboard. Named after a song by The Church, "Before the Deluge."
The coyote with the pine tree, its roots as red veins connected to an underground heart, and crow flying in the mountains is "Heart Murmur." Free-flowing uncalculated imagery. The feel of the New Mexico wilderness as a spiritual consciousness.
The wolf with sky and crows inside its facial profile is similar. Night landscape with waterfall externally. A free wheeling exploration of a mystical feeling in nature. Realities within realities. Named "Anywhere Out of the World" after a song by Dead Can Dance.
The big cat in the jungle at night, "Green Jaguar," was made in black paint on olive green posterboard. An experiment in carving the images out of the background rather than applying color and shape to a blank background. Lol.
The canine beast in a red hat and red and white striped polo, a chain on its neck, is "Imaginary Friend." I came across an old monstrous wolf painting of mine and wanted to put a hat on him, and was inspired to make a new painting instead. It became a reference to a brief bittersweet period in a less than idyllic childhood when I saw my father for the first time in over a year in Pleasant Ridge, a suburb of Detroit. So includes a blue Jay and a squirrel, a green army man parachute toy, etc. The great beast is perhaps the elephant in the room. The darkness looming throughout my family and my life. I have considered calling it "Panic in Detroit " after a David Bowie song.