Paintings
Integrally linked to the news cycle and the movements of the day, my work takes the form of both commentary and poetic musing. These days, I find myself especially interested in putting a spotlight on the various forms of extremism embedded in America’s current political landscape. At one time, perhaps on the fringes, we have moved to the dangerous stage of mainstream acceptance defined by overt and preposterous lies and conspiracies. Election denialism, a conspiracy theory easily debunked with an ounce of effort, is now a required position to maintain or advance one’s political career in today’s GOP. The situation we find ourselves in is nearly beyond the bounds of any rational person’s imagination. Convulsions of activism stirred together with the intensity of our nation’s culture wars feeds the intense hatred of the “other” and reinforces the bars of hyper-partisanship that we find ourselves imprisoned in. These are components that make up the language of our time, feeding the flames of defeatism and hatred that burns white hot. Fueled by an apocalyptic world view, including predictions and visions of civil war, an imaginary erosion of our civil liberties, delusions of indoctrination of our children by the radical left, to the alleged dismantling of a traditional Judeo-Christian values and family structure somehow by an imaginary LGBTQ agenda. The all-out war between the woke left and America’s right-wing wages on.
The painting, Kek’s Wrath, birthed in the cavernous depths of the far right-wing message board 4chan, is the fictitious and satirical land of Kekistan. Adopted partly in jest, the invented country, wrapped in its own lore and religion, is essentially a brand of absurdist political commentary made-up by an extremist wing of America’s alt-right. Ruled over by the omnipresent God named Kek, derived from the Egyptian deity of chaos and destruction, the deity was said to take the form of both man and woman. As a masculine form, he would literally become frog-headed, a fact that was later weaponized by today’s “Church of Kek” as a dark satirical quip in the form of the familiar meme, Pepe the frog.
In Kek’s Wrath, Kellyanne Conway is drunk in a state of total exaltation, somewhere between the absolute misery of living out her last moments alive, and spiritual euphoria, as both her fear and her fantasy of total world annihilation come to be. Her depiction is unequivocally Mannerist—her pose and expression bend, stretch and sag. Her arms are outstretched, letting loose clouds of red and blue smoke bombs, bringing to mind perhaps the most iconic moment from the January 6th uprising seen in pictures— that would be the Kekistani protester, draped with the Naziesque green and white Kekistani flag, arms also outstretched, only verso to Conway’s stance, spraying smoke bombs that seem to envelope our Capitol Building. It feels like a moment of complete fatalist rapture, an extremist victory in the destruction of it all.
Conway’s family is there with her. They are emerging in the episodic panels, afraid, fleeing from the turmoil and destruction. The Conway family embodies our internal partisan battles. George Conway, respected lawyer and conservative pundit, made his rounds on various talk shows condemning the 45th president for years and years, all the while Kellyanne passionately defended the administration. Their daughter, Claudia, social media sensation known for her rebukes of her mother’s political leanings, attempts to flee, depicted like her father, theatrically posed and overacting, again saturated with Mannerist qualities and born from a generative reference. It is the world order dissolving as much as it is the entirety of all life. The Keks want to start over, destroying all “normies”, or the so-called conformist “centrists”.
Thick clouds of red and blue are reminiscent of a John Martin apocalypse scene. Crowds of activists fight each other in a state of total chaos. Even the infamous Paul Pelosi beating is referenced using primary imagery as a source. This episode may bring to mind the real-life horrors of hyperpartisan aggression, delusion, and the outlandish conspiracy theories attached to the event including the rumor that Paul and his attackers were estranged lovers. Ultimately, Kek’s Wrath melts the boundaries of the real into a stew of plausibility, falsehoods and myth.