“Fox Knew” 2023

30 X 46 inches

Acrylic paint on wood panel

The piece is about Fox News' willful ignorance of the history of racism interwoven with the history of America. The American, Confederate, and Confederate Battle Flags are all filtered over each each other to suggest that racism never died in America; attention has just been directed elsewhere.

I started out wanting to make the notion of "American Prosperity" or "Manifest Destiny" into a "Snakes and Ladders” type boardgame, which is rather a front to a manipulative, confusing, unfair, and cruel system. One ladder is conspicuously placed and the snakes are slithering amok. I wanted the iconography to be characters that could conceptually lend themselves to the scenes, but aren’t already entrenched in the baggage of the subject matter. In satirizing Fox News' propaganda, I wanted to allude to the history of racism without delivering the pill with too many sharp edges, as to "Nerf" or "Disneyfy" the history. Disney characters from my childhood felt appropriately ironic to incorporate since the company has been at ideological war with conservatives in recent years and branded as “Woke.” The Foxes depicted are from Disney's "The Fox and The Hound," which I would argue was promoting the appreciation of differences and loving the other as its narrative moral. The painting's Foxes are quite the contrary, sporting Tucker Carlson's famous bow tie and pitifully outraged expressions.

The King and his sycophant Sir Hiss from Disney’s "Robin Hood" are camped out on Native American land and mesmerized by vanity, much like how Mara Lago is situated on Seminole land. Chief Wahoo (Cleveland Indians’ logo) is a similarly awful and degrading image as that of Sambo, and yet it is still used as a corporate logo. Because the Native American genocide has become a side note in American history, it seemed fitting to have the image be the only reference to this part of the story.

The larger story is slavery in America becoming mutated instead of extinguished by the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Slavery is still legal for convicts, so America just had to learn how to incarcerate better to preserve white power. Paul Bunyan is seen in the right side of the painting displaying his white privilege as he gestures towards opportunity and prosperity out of frame. His counterpart Babe The Blue Ox is left to toil in prison garb, wearing the 13 on his back, and receiving backlash from the foxes for his angst to his fate. He's pulling an empty Santa sleigh of conspicuous consumption, with the pointlessness of Sisyphus, whilst pulling along an exploitative system that only helps the rich private prison shareholders get even richer. Paul and Babe (in the Disney Tall Tale version) create the Rocky Mountains in their mighty tussle upon meeting, and change the landscape with logging like no other in their eventual alliance. This felt like a heavily euphemized way to view the formation of America's great wealth and prosperity being created on the backs of slaves. Their alliance made them an incomparable resource for American Expansionism until the rich industrialist came to town with his machines like a chainsaw and locomotive to put Paul and Babe out of business. The mustachioed industrialist appears in the center of the painting, swallowing the scene that he is woven around, with one eye on the King and the other eye on Babe. The industrialist represents a media billionaire that can be someone like Rupert Murdoch or Elon Musk (just a rich person using technology to subjugate).

The source image of the scene that the industrialist is swallowing was a protester and his super hero costumed daughter facing riot police. This image particularly disturbed me, as I refuse to believe there can be any justification for aiming a smoke grenade launcher at a toddler. The scene is broken up by the flag's bars into guide lines that separate the abstracted "grey area" from the realistically rendered portions of the figures. The humanities of the officers and the father don't match up, as he goes in and out of reality or presence, whilst supporting his daughter who is simultaneously riding his shoulders and the industrialist's nose. She could potentially be prey to circumstances that have trickled down from ultimately a few hands for very selfish and licentious reasons, and lose her father.

Between the super hero infant and the narcissistic trespass of the King on tribal land, is of course the Insurrection of January 6th. This was enabled by white power and privilege, fueled by propaganda and white rage over the paranoias of their replacement, and absolutely stoked by the disinformation from Fox News and their ilk. The King's sycophant slithers toward the viewer to hypnotize and coax you toward the goal of upending democracy in favor of the fascist narrative. Are the Chief Wahoos threatening the King? Or is the Ouroboros threatening them? This snake also completes a "Q" with the Ouroboros snake to denote Q-anon's role in the disinformation and manipulation of information for nefarious purposes. This Q also sits in the painting like how some storybooks start out chapters with a giant and ornate first letter of the first word (drop cap), insinuating that Q-anon might harken in a dark new chapter in American Racism. Inside the Ouroboros (posturing as the King), is the guy that broke into Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office to put his feet on her desk and rummage through her belongings. This felt like one of the most entitled images I had ever seen, and demonstrated the ownership the Insurrectionists were taking in their crimes.

The other police officers are depicted in the painting not to address the insurrection, but to bombard the convict at the slightest sign of aggression. The industrialist's mustache seems to mediate or instigate these forces between the police and those that are being particularly policed, whilst meanwhile covering over the opportunities of the token ladder.