Politics as Un-Usual
- Ray Noll
- Aug 3, 2016
- 2 min read
The 2016 election stretches before us as three months on the highway to hell. Bigger, uglier, with oxygen sucking rhetoric from candidates, complicated by twenty-four hour media pontification on the screw-up of the day. A fine time to escape into the non-verbal world of art.
"Election Year" which is every year, is an oil painting on canvas, 40" X 40". Created in 2002, the piece was originally titled "Party of Two" as a comment on the entrenched two party dominance of American politics. The symbolic animal of each party reflects the perceived attitude of Republicans and Democrats. Conservative elephants hold each other's tail and plod dutifully to the right while liberal donkeys kick and buck in all directions.
The animal figures are referenced from Eadweard Muybridge's landmark 1887 photographic collection "Animals in Motion". Muybridge pioneered high speed photography to capture every nuance of an animal's movement. Dover Books now publishes this seminal work of 4,000 images, all copyright free.
In terms of painting style, "Election Year" employs an old master's technique echoing the antiquity of the two party system. A playful sense of movement is created by the animals, the ripple in the flag, and the dancing circus typography along the bottom. The underpainting is done in burnt umber establishing all of the tonality. Thin layers of oil paint are then applied building the surface colors. Each color must dry before the next is added, working from dark to light. The colors are primary and minimal; indigo blue, cadmium red, yellow ochre, and flake white.
In 2016 this painting is already symbolically obsolete. The two party system is fragmented and unpopular with the choices between the lesser of two evils. The elephants are stampeding in every direction and the donkeys represent the stagnant status quo. As a work of political pop art, "Election Year" can now be classified as Americana Memorabilia. Meanwhile, the two party system tweets itself into the future. How do I paint that?
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