"This work depicts a gathering of the major players in world affairs. I have followed the tradition of personifying nations as symbolically female. America is a morbidly obese woman, an excess of kitsch resting in an inflatable pool overflowing with oil. She is handcuffed to China, a mix of tradition and industrialism. Europe is old, at once fertile and maternal. She is paired with an emaciated Africa, and they share in desperation: one for sustenance, the other to provide it. The middle east's emotions are an open question as she isolates herself, cutting her wrist into a stream of black oil. The ambitious scale of the piece presented challenges I have never faced before. Covering large areas in flat black necessitated the use of different media such as ink and oil bar. This experimentation has been useful because it is conducive to my stylistic direction, and an encouraging step forward. As with previous work, I have tried to keep a darkly comic, narrative sensibility, allowing the viewer to bring their own subjectivity to the piece."
I sketched this project on Wednesday the 28th of November, but began in earnest on Thursday night. I pulled two semi-all-nighters (4 am and 6 am) at the studio and somehow pulled through it without destroying my health. Eating lemons and cayenne pepper helped. In my statement I neglect to mention South America, who is in the background snorting cocaine. She is less important, and mostly there as a self-indulgence. I expect this will offend some people, and my hope is that it does not discriminate in its offense. This project really is about apathy with the state of the world. Politics sucks. Hopefully I have pulled something beautiful from the suckage. Dimensions: 94" x 65".
Graphite sketch.
Erasing graphite, drawing in charcoal and ink.
Significant progress! Flat blacks are happening...
The ceremonial halfway point.
The pipes are finally in...
...and there they go. And this is when I called it done.
I'M OFFENDED.
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