Wargasm Guns and Gods and Oil and Blood: America in Iraq A Comedy of Terrors in Three Unnnatural Acts

Wargasm
Guns and Gods and Oil and Blood:
America in Iraq
A Comedy of Terrors in Three Unnnatural Acts

Lady Anne: “Knows’t thou no law of man or nature?
No beast so fierce has not some touch of pity.”
Gloucester: “But I know none and therefore am no beast.”

Shakespeare – Richard III

Wargasm. It’s like “Heart of Darkness”, only funnier. I came up with the title because there are some who love death as much as others love life. This makes us weird. I would describe this body of work as Dante meets Dr. Stangelove in that the artwork transcends the political subject matter of the Iraq War. It is really a deeper examination of the nature of human nature. The portraits of the Bush Administration acknowledge their humanity albeit lurking lost in the dark, cold caves of their souls.

With this in mind each painting embraces something of beauty as well as darkness, a reminder that in every thing lies the potential for all things. You can choose to look upon the horrors of the day but there is great beauty in this world to focus on as well. It is easy to demonize your enemies …it is easy to become the thing you loathe the most. We can evolve or we can revolve.

Cantilevered into the 21st century armed with Odor Eaters and doused with Old Spice we’ve eliminated all traces of our primate past only to discover the monsters taunting us are but the distorted reflections of our selves in the fun house mirror of distant time… me, myself, and I, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, blind rage, love is blind. Shatter the mirror in victory proud warrior, declare yourself triumphant … you are not like your reflection… hairy, vulgar, and coarse.

Like a family vacation gone bad, the Family of Man has been stuck in a car on the road to Baghdad together for too long with no end of bickering in sight. The better angels of our nature sitting up front are taunted by the sums of our fears in the back. On this trip, Fear drives us to distraction. If America is a melting pot then war is the bouillabaisse for fools.

So let’s have fun and give shape to our fears. The cubes implied by the shapes of these paintings allow both 2 and 3 dimensions to exist simultaneously, suspending time and space. George Bush and friends stand embalmed in the resin of their own ossified tears, frozen forever in hells of their own making, like some prehistoric insect trapped in amber.

Dodie Kazanjian, art editor-at-large for Vogue Magazine called the images “…really timely and powerful” and “ they’re well done and have a lot of bite.”