Arts & Antiques

mostly conveniently swept under the rug? The “Say no Evil” monkey is looking upwards to the words “We the People”, his eyes somewhat full of malice.

See how Frenn exquisite manipulation of the painting surface also manipulates what the eye “sees” and more importantly, what the mind wants to see?

Every single piece in this powerful show replicates the previous questions – each one is full of clues, statements and references.

We see Christopher Columbus, but not the Columbus who always signed his name as Cristóbal Colón, and who was allegedly born as Cristoforo Colombo, but the Columbus who is viewed with the glasses of the 21st century and not in the context of the worldwide savagery of 1492 – the fall of Granada, the Spanish Pope becomes Pope Alexander VI, the invasion of France by King Henry VII of England, the burning of Jews at the stake in Mecklenburg, Germany, and another 100,000 Jews are expelled from Sicily. Jews were also expelled from Spain, and in doing so, the battle lines for the next few centuries were drawn by the soon to be allpowerful Spanish monarchs.

We see a 21st century Columbus, side-by-side with a stylized Native American; the painting surface is split in two, and they both look sad.

In several of the works Frenn goes for a primal scream as the terrifying main image, and somehow manages to deliver unique impressions in the several works depicting a scream, most notably a self portrait of Frenn and a brutal scream by a small child.

The New York Times also once noted about Frenn’s works that “a viewer senses that his life is inseparable from what

We the People #102 “What we revealed is that this spying system is devoted not to terrorists, but is directed to innocent people around the world. None of this has anything to do with terrorism. Is Angela Merkel a terrorist? This is clearly about political power and economic espionage. And the claim that this is all about terrorism is seen around the world as what it is, which is pure deceit.” Glenn Greenwald, journalist

We the People #6 “We want a great country. We want a country with heart. But when people come up, they have to know they can’t get in. Otherwise it’s never going to stop. When you prosecute the parents for coming in illegally, which should happen, you have to take the children away. Now, we don’t have to prosecute them, but then we’re not prosecuting them for coming in illegally. That’s not good.” President Donald Trump

We the People #58 “Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shore, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society... We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population... Our children are still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations.” Martin Luther King, Jr. he puts down on canvas.” The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette adds that “nothing in Frenn’s work is absolute or beyond question.”

And that sums up with Chawky Frenn does best with his artistic wizardry and his enviable painting talent: he puts his life on canvas or paper, and then lets the viewer interpret it and make his or her own interpretation of the subject.

Frenn’s work is both the life giving first breath exhaled after a near drowning, as well as the first breath of free will that Genesis so aptly describes.

“ ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING PEOPLE OF WASHINGTON, DC”

– Washington City Paper Syreni Caledonii (Northern Atlanti c Mermaid). Watercolor, charcoal and Conte. 2019, 12x36 inches.

Alida Anderson Art Projects, LLC, Washington, DC www.alidaanderson.com / info@alidaanderson.com

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