Portraits of The New American Century: Foreign Terrorists / K_IA / Collateral Damage
Much of our everyday life seems vacuous and superficial when considering the current preponderance of violence and warfare, in which we are complicit by virtue of government policies, propaganda and practices. The events of September 11, 2001 threw the Western world, and particularly America, into massive social shock, allowing the brokers of globalism to further their ambitions and entrench us once again in the mire of war. One way of countering this complicity is to look beyond the surface to unmask the filters of media.
The images I have represented in this 72 panel trilogy are all mediated and remote: politically, physically, and emotionally. While we are distanced and detached from the realities of the warfare and natural disasters we view daily in the media, we are more connected to the most horrific of global events on a minute-by-minute basis than ever before. By and large, the North American public is saturated with media coverage and by the Internet, but disengaged from the realities of war. Until and/or unless people are directly affected by such events, life in the West goes about the business of commerce and daily routine disconnected from the chaos, mayhem, and brutalities of the so-called “War on Terror”.
In this large triptych, I am confronting the “New American Century” from the vantage point of a Canadian-American immigrant who came to Canada in 1969. Today, thirty-seven years after my flight, we again find young American Resisters seeking refuge in Canada as a result of an illegal and increasingly unpopular war. My position and lament is that the United States has neither retained nor applied the hard-learned lessons of Vietnam to subsequent global conflicts. History is again repeating itself in a new guise with unabated intensity, and a growing zeal and polarity over the issues on all sides, making this a timely and poignant statement.
The present interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan bring my Canadian views on American retaliation and globalization since the tragedies of September 11th to the painting process. These politically charged paintings are about an American-led war from my Canadian perspective. I present disparate images of the so-called “War on Terror” together and allow the viewer to come to their own interpretations and conclusions. For me, however, the key is to be found in the relationships between the contrasting elements and anonymous portraits.
My use of the grid, selection of RGB colours, and fluorescent paints that glow under UV lights reference the digital medium from which the images are taken. The dimly lit installation creates an eerie effect of anonymous death and brings the emotional subject matter back to the original, personal idea of the medium.
This installation provides a contrast between the tradition of painting and in the impersonal, technological world of the Internet, and it begs the viewer to consider the filters of media communication. “Portraits of The New American Century: Foreign Terrorists / K_IA / Collateral Damage” (2005) and "Shock & Awe Trilogy: New York City, Jerusalem, Baghdad" (2004), are visceral attempts to humanize conflicts and events that have otherwise become sanitized and over-saturated in our consciousness.
The images I have represented in this 72 panel trilogy are all mediated and remote: politically, physically, and emotionally. While we are distanced and detached from the realities of the warfare and natural disasters we view daily in the media, we are more connected to the most horrific of global events on a minute-by-minute basis than ever before. By and large, the North American public is saturated with media coverage and by the Internet, but disengaged from the realities of war. Until and/or unless people are directly affected by such events, life in the West goes about the business of commerce and daily routine disconnected from the chaos, mayhem, and brutalities of the so-called “War on Terror”.
In this large triptych, I am confronting the “New American Century” from the vantage point of a Canadian-American immigrant who came to Canada in 1969. Today, thirty-seven years after my flight, we again find young American Resisters seeking refuge in Canada as a result of an illegal and increasingly unpopular war. My position and lament is that the United States has neither retained nor applied the hard-learned lessons of Vietnam to subsequent global conflicts. History is again repeating itself in a new guise with unabated intensity, and a growing zeal and polarity over the issues on all sides, making this a timely and poignant statement.
The present interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan bring my Canadian views on American retaliation and globalization since the tragedies of September 11th to the painting process. These politically charged paintings are about an American-led war from my Canadian perspective. I present disparate images of the so-called “War on Terror” together and allow the viewer to come to their own interpretations and conclusions. For me, however, the key is to be found in the relationships between the contrasting elements and anonymous portraits.
My use of the grid, selection of RGB colours, and fluorescent paints that glow under UV lights reference the digital medium from which the images are taken. The dimly lit installation creates an eerie effect of anonymous death and brings the emotional subject matter back to the original, personal idea of the medium.
This installation provides a contrast between the tradition of painting and in the impersonal, technological world of the Internet, and it begs the viewer to consider the filters of media communication. “Portraits of The New American Century: Foreign Terrorists / K_IA / Collateral Damage” (2005) and "Shock & Awe Trilogy: New York City, Jerusalem, Baghdad" (2004), are visceral attempts to humanize conflicts and events that have otherwise become sanitized and over-saturated in our consciousness.
