Evening sky peeking through dark clouds and spring branches
Dusk, as a storm move in and blue sky peeks through clouds and the trees
(taken with new DSL Canon Rebel)
The Adventures of Putin! (postcards)
Originally, 24x18 ink on paper drawings commissioned for my dear old friend Nicholas Rainville, who also enjoys political sattire and requested these upon hearing of Vladmir Putin, current President of Russia’s miraculous adventures. Seriously, he has shot a tiger, harpooned a whale and well…helped a polar bear? Just google “Putin” + “tiger/whale/polar bear” and you’ll see the news articles and youtube videos that document these events (to a much less exaggerated extent then I).
Since Putin has gone around the world doing crazy things - including swimming with dolphins! (to be commissioned later) - Nick thought it would be great to have post cards from these adventures and thus is the result. A calendar might even be in the making at some point.
Of course there are some obvious exaggerations such as the incredible buffness of Putin, the fact he’s always topless/sleeveless and the Communist Hammer and Sycle tattoos on his arms, but that’s okay of course
Don’t! Please Don’t! acrylic and found materials on canvas (40x30)
This peice was originally created as a part of an assignment that required doing a painting based off the work of a well known artist. The idea was to bend or play off the chosen peice in some way and since I focused my studies on East Asian art I decided to go with a work by well known contemporary Chinese artist, Yue Minjun. The work of his I based my painting on was his painting Execution (oil on canvas). Yue’s work is famous for it’s political/social comentaries and I decided to roll with that theme, however, in order to appeal to a broader audiance I strayed away from a particular criticism of Chinese politics/government/Mao Tsedong by adding the image of Chancellor Palpatine from the Star Wars Saga. This character represents in a pop-culture sense corruption in politics and authoritariansm (in regards to his character evolving into the galactic Emperor).
Therefore I thought Palpatine would be perfect as a “neutral” “political figure” to replace Mao in the Chinese Cultural Revolution poster I used as a element of the “victims” in the painting. The original poster (Looking into the Distance,Xiang Qijiu, Shanghai People’s Art Publishing House, 1978) depicted Mao standing over and possibly guiding these children obviously as a form of propaganda towards children that indicates Mao as a great teacher and guide. It just so happens that at one point in the Star Wars films Palpatine happens to look very similar to Mao in terms of hair and clothing and I thought it fit well here in this picture.
Although there have been criticisms of Mao’s personality cult and policies and his corruption as a politician I wanted to make a more broader statment on the corruption of politicians of all backgrounds, including Western leaders, and make a point that it isn’t particularly communism that creates dictators. I also wanted to clarify that I am not criticising Chinese politics or Mao in particular through this peice but politics and our perceptions of our government and leaders in general.
Nothing NEW just posting some of my old photos of urban spaces for now, a few sets more from these “series” will appear shortly - god i wish i had a camera
