Boondocks Babylon

 

Ego miser et indignus peccator

I, a poor and unworthy sinner

In the court of cancel culture, of identitarian collectivism , so I stand, guilty as charged.

Mr. Punch’s Auto da fé (II), 2024, oil on canvas, 30 by 40 inches

I finished this painting last evening , I had begun the painting in May, although a deliberate painter this painting had taken longer than usual. In great part because of our purchasing the Bisbee cottage @bisbeehermitage , the moving of belongings, home repairs etc. plus a studio move , all kept me from the easel.

Initially a watercolor painting, I was inspired to further explore the concept in oil. I think I was correct in doing so .

The impetus for the painting was a thinly suppressed sense of self censorship pervading contemporary society; I felt (feel) its impact socially, intellectually and in the studio accompanied by a pervading demand to self flagellate should one transgress . Cancel culture, while an overused term, is powerful, an invisible force capable of switching off sincere expression, opinions, deeply held beliefs for fear of being perceived a heretic, an apostate …or at least a jerk.

The auto da fé , that ultimate theater of silencing seemed an obvious inspiration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-da-fé

 

Feeling an increased sense isolation,a fundamental  alienation from the world in general but also the art “community” ( I have come to hate that over used  word);  an art world I barely understood previously to now out and out befuddlement and banishment. I wanted to lift the veil and explore, at least for myself what the hell was going on. The best way for me to do that was at the easel , working with the symbolist language I have created over the years.

Ordinarily I refrain from any contemporary cultural or political topic, I try to create work that will speak broadly, no matter where or when that viewer encounters my work. Far too often I encounter work in gallery spaces that are so of the moment I wonder how they will be interpreted by future audiences. Such works, rooted in current affairs , will need to buoyed by artistic genius – which most do not possess.

I avoid the constraints of my age , so often an ugly, harsh age, as much as possible. But with increasing frequency , I felt an oppression , the suppression  of creativity from cultural forces hell bent upon constraint, be they  “Woke”, DEI, CRT, “queer theory” whatever, all armed with  restrictive  “rules” firmly rooted in collective identity that are in sharp battle with my insistence upon the superiority of the individual. A firm belief that we are each uniquely fashioned by our Maker;  the unique Creation capable of Creating in the manner of its masterful Creator.

My “betters”, the elites of academia and the arts, swanning about on the lake of their credentials were now demanding not heartfelt artmaking but assertions of identitarian victimhood, preferably “intersectional” for full equitable validity , propagandist expressions supportive of the new world order. If only I were an indigenous, non-binary, gender  fluid,  non-normative, POC practitioner of shamanic voodooism seeking an MFA in Persian lesbian embroidery practices of the 14th c.

I jest, but such seem the demands of contemporary relevance .

I found my voice, my interests , western civilization, history, Christendom, under attack, devalued , disparaged, mocked, statues toppled and in its place frequently the most vapid , slip-shod and obviously pandering  identity collectives. Where once it was the artist in the spotlight,  it was now the “we”- the us not me mindset once the rallying cry of only the Marxist fringe.

This had become the new normal, and not only was I not welcome, I was , in the language of this elite tribe, part of the problem.

I found myself spiraling into depression , even despair, the world I love, of Western culture, the Great Books,  baroque art, classical music, Renaissance paintings, Victoriana, even the British countryside were now being deemed problematic , colonial, oppressive , the only redemption being self flagellation, the abject refuting of one’s individualism if that individualism was deemed too lacking in skin pigment, too rooted in Christ, too heteronormative etc. If one could not or would not abase themselves properly, then to the pyre…or at least to Siberian irrelevance.

I felt, feel this keenly and to express that I garbed many in this painting (and in others) with the pointy cap of the Inquisition , the sanbenito. Further raiment being embroidered with the ornament of devilment found on proper pyre attire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanbenito Source

I have hope the winds of change are in the air, increasingly there are voices resisting this mass call of retribution, this collective act of contrition . The courts of the auto da fé ultimately shuttered; hopefully the halls of the righteous harridans will crumble and fade away as well and we can get back to the individual in sympathy and in harmony not as brothers and sisters of shared victimhood but of good will.

Happy Advent, Merry Christmas.