Santa President
Santa/President are paintings on felt made with the same tension between drawing and painting as the works in The March Hare.
In exhibiting the March Hare I noticed the tendency of the audience to connect the paintings to something familiar, thereby negating the discomfort inherent in the work.
These paintings are an attempt to recalibrate the references the viewer connects the work to. In Santa/President a traditional holiday figure, Santa, and his many cultural connections, are created loosely, and finished with the eyes of U.S. Presidents.
By repeating the process of taking a comforting holiday character and palette (Easter bunny/Santa) with a more intense, powerful reference (Civil War figure, President) I attempt to insert the mystery that lives between the commonly understood definitions and responses to this visual information.
