I was raised an Irish Catholic and lived across the street from a cemetery. The themes of mortality, disease, suffering, masochism, sadism and violence in my work can be traced to my childhood experiences and an early fascination with the Bible.
~~ Joe Coleman [13]

In the Deleuzo-Sadean construct there are two forces of nature – secondary nature, where destruction and creation are engaged in an unending process and a primary nature of pure negation "a primal delirium, an original and timeless chaos." The sadist acts violently against secondary nature dreaming of nihilism and annihilation – this is not an experience but an "idea" but although pure negation is a "delusion" it is a delusion of reason itself. The Sadean individual dreams "of a universal, impersonal crime" that will reproduce itself perpetually and demonstrate (mathematically) the efficacy of the idea.

As in Coleman's paintings, the repetitive scenes of deviancy in Sade expresses a desire to overcome secondary nature via an acceleration/ multiplication of acts of violence. Sade aims to destroy all secondary nature, including his own identity in order to enjoy the intense but impersonal pleasure of demonstrative reason. Coleman's art is an art of disavowal and suspension. He neither destroys the real nor idealizes the real, but alternatively disavows the real and introduces the ideal within fantasy, an "intermezzo" realm between the real and ideal.

Sade explores a curious interworld, in which bodies/words/things/ideas interpenetrate and structural demarcation between physical and metaphysical are fractured. Sade tries to saturate the real with a destructive ideal.

"The Man of Sorrows" is my tribute to Bosch . . . I understand Bosch's struggle to control and define the forces of the Dark Ages . . . Like Bosch, my fear is too great. I need to clarify it, border it and surround it with icons and charms to protect me from it. From the beginning art was a way for me to render visible the visceral reality of experience.
~~ Joe Coleman [14]

"The Man of Sorrows" is a portrait of the life of Jesus Christ as told from Coleman's idiosyncratic vision.

This book is an examination of the painting I call "THE MAN OF SORROWS", a revelation of the hidden truths about Jesus Christ and an illumination of the Christian iconography which formed a base from which our artistic pathology grew.
~~ Joe Coleman [15]

"The Man of Sorrows" is based on Coleman's research into the early Christian writings known as The Apocrypha which are stories that were removed from the New Testament because they clashed with the view of Jesus that the Church wished to promote. Pagan and Jewish accounts of Jesus written soon after his death are also included.

In this series of paintings "Saints" and mystics, religious symbols and articles of devotion are applied in such a way to create a labyrinth of meanings involving mysticism, ecclesiastical and diabolic power and the history of the divine.

Joe Coleman works are among the most shocking images in contemporary art. But they are also among the most traditional. They remind us of the lasting impact that the metaphors of sacred/divine art have had on our imagination and ideas about life and death. In a sense he is looking back to a medieval aesthetic – medieval interest in symbolism/allegory/Biblical narrative and metaphorical representation. Inside each painting is a myriad of tiny worlds one can enter. The narratives these details relate are not arranged in any linear pattern, pieces of text weave around the intricately, plotted microscopic imagery. Coleman reveals a Baroque passion for aesthetic overload. The images provoke in the viewer a range of associations, from utter disgust to an atavistic return to a fear of the Divine.

The invitation to view the virtuous saint in the sufferings of the common man provided Baroque art (and later Christianity) with one of its most prominent strategies. It is ironic therefore that this appeal to human empathy resulted as the most persuasive promotional device for the Church during one of the most fanatical and violent periods in its history. However, this is exactly the kind of cultural contradiction that is forcibly conjured up when we see the "dignity" of Coleman "pantheon of saints" arranged within the haunting settings he constructs. It is as if Coleman's images are designed to reveal the dialectic underlying Baroque art – letting us see the sadistic fantasies that might have been repressed in the empathy inspired by martyrs. The conviction, that in art, empathy and projection lead to the revelation of moral truth, is precisely what is put to the test in Coleman's pictures.

Nothing – not even the will of the artist – can tame the rebellious meanings unleashed by his loaded subject matter. And Coleman seems to be fully aware of this aspect of his work. He fine-tunes his paintings indomitable descriptiveness – the paintings inherent failure to reveal an essential truth, even while showing everything – in order to release the latent meanings of the subject, often presenting a force that artists have, for centuries, harnessed in the image of death.

In the painting – "Give my that Old Time Religion" (1995), Coleman's sardonic title suggests a bitter attack on the violent extremes of a religion devoted to the ideals of Christ. Beyond the satirical intent, this painting expresses a deep-seated desire, central to Coleman's sensibility, for direct contract with the primitive and primordial sources of all religions. In "Faith" (1996) Coleman presents himself surrounded by several frames made up of artefacts from his collection "Odditorium", as if creating a protective barrier of magical devices. Within these frames is a series of holes within holes. To Coleman, the seven circles are "healing symbols" representing the days of the week. A very literal emptiness is created by the real holes drilled into the paintings centre.