WARHEADS PAINTING PAINTING IN IN THE THE AGE AGE OF OF PERPETUAL PERPETUAL WAR WAR
SLOWINSKI
WARHEADS PAINTING IN THE AGE OF PERPETUAL WAR
SLOWINSKI
SlowArt SlowArt Productions, 123 Warren Street, Hudson, NY 12534 www.slowart.com Produced 2013 in the USA
Since I was born, the world I have witnessed has been one of continuous killing and wars. My early childhood was in the Vietnam era and during the Cold War threat of nuclear holocaust. Like many children in the 1960s, I was surrounded by fallout shelters and was instructed at school on how to use them. Back then, the newspapers and television were filled with the dead and the burnt bodies of napalm victims. People were killed in the streets during non-violent protest. In the cities, blacks took up arms and rioted. The police were at war with them, they had been treated like animals for too long. From there we phased into covert wars, proxy wars in Africa and Iran-contra, Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua, the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan (to name the obvious) and now we are in the unending, eternal war on terror. Due to this environment, many of my paintings have been infected with the subject of war. Lately, the world has become surreal and strangely Orwellian. Torture, execution and assassination have become commonplace, yet people saunter about as if nothing is happening. Phoney investigations are held to legitimize and explain away horrific war crimes. Whole classes of people are labeled as suspicious and thus transformed into targets for remote controlled assassination—yet there is more interest in the latest TV commercial, celebrity gossip or lotto winner. After 911 things changed. Like an alcoholic at a AA meeting, the country stood up and gleefully admitted that it was in a state of perpetual war. Unfortunately, the statement was not one of attrition or desire to break the addictionÂ. It was the opposite. It was to affirm and justify the addiction. To give self permission to go on drinking more heavily. To drink until our collective liver fails, until we bleed internally and fall convulsing on the ground.
Toy Time Cereal, Acrylic on cereal box Many breakfast cereals in the 1960s and 70s were marketed to kids with toys inside, or ordered from box tops. Often they were military based toys, submarines, guns and rockets.
Tank Head, Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 20”
Modern human social behavior can be understood when compared to primitive, primate social dynamics. On the savanna, troops of baboons greedily battle each other over control of food resources. Humans follow the same basic patterns of behavior. Instead of troops, we have countries. Instead of sticks, stones and teeth, we have nukes, bombers and drones. The dominant country feels entitled to control the subordinate. A subordinate country is only permitted to control its resources if it submits to the control of the dominant. Civilization is an illusion masking brutal, primal force.
Future Man, Acrylic on canvas, 20” x 16” The man of the future, though merged with electronic components, has devolved and wanders through the ruins of civilization. Detail: A Race for Dollars, Acrylic on canvas, 50” x 84” Although disguised in suits and ties, the stock market baboons hoot and holler for dollars, just like savanna baboons hoot for grapefruit.
Big Businessman in Iraq 2, Acrylic on canvas, 64” x 42”
Big Businessman in Iraq, Acrylic on canvas, 62� x 54�
Behind every armed conflict are the interests of money and property, thus the main Warheads are the Big Businessmen in Iraq. Unlike lower primates, humans can disguise their greed and desire for control
behind a cloak of self-righteous dogma. Like baboons, they will reap bloody carnage and death to get what they want. They will take comfort in blaming the victim. The reason for the assault is lack of compliance.
Running from Fear, Acrylic on canvas, 24� x 18�
The bogeyman in Running from Fear does not really exist, but the woman has lost her mind to fear and runs naked through the street to escape it. Leading up to every war is a war dance. Baboons will charge around throwing up their hands and hooting, to get the troop riled up. Humans have their own war dance, only the
drums are beaten on TV and in the news. In Uncle Franks War Dance, history provides the backdrop, the drum beat and stage. Like a heroin addict with a monkey on his back, the monster of war, addicted to violence and death, dances himself into orgasmic frenzy, jerking his missile up and down like a masturbatory appendage until the whole society explodes.
Uncle Franks War Dance, Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 18”
Virgin Bomber, Acrylic on canvas, 8� x 10�
Out of the blessed womb of the Virgin Bomber, bombs fall upon the landscape. The woman, traditionally exempt from the violence and madness of killing, should be a voice crying out in the wilderness of war, calling the men back to reason. Instead, the Woman Warrior in Iraq has joined his ranks, and under the myth of equality, has lowered herself to
join in the bestiality of men. The mottled deformity of her face, framed in the golden artifice of her hair and ruby lips, bespeaks her plight and is a testimonial to what she has become. The crumbling cobbles of ruined, bombed out buildings surround her. They bestow upon her the macho destructive madness formerly reserved for men.
Woman Warrior in Iraq, Acrylic on canvas, 48” x 36”
Priest in Iraq, Acrylic on canvas, 18” x 24”
Religion is the tool of war, cloaking it’s horrors in a shroud of righteousness. The clergy, rather than protest, offer up
Right: Priest in Iraq 2, Acrylic on canvas, 36” x 24”
hypocritical support. The various Christian denominations, through manipulation and trickery, give blessing to evil.
Justice Served, Acrylic on canvas, 30” x 24”
All Religions join the ranks and use faith to justify and disguise heinous crimes. Religion functions like a primitive clan. Anyone outside the clan is deemed evil and unworthy unless they submit to the
Right: Israeli Bomber, Acrylic on canvas, 16” x 12”
rules and control of the dominant clan. Persecution can temporarily be averted by bowing down in submission —but conversion can be revoked at whim, as inquisitors of many tribes have demonstrated.
Arab with Cola, Acrylic on canvas, 6” x 4”
Arab with Camel Filters, Acrylic on canvas, 6” x 4”
Plotting Saudis with Fruity Sodas, Acrylic on canvas, 18� x 24�
Business interests and greed are not the privilege of any one tribe, but are found in all. Mercenaries, back stabbers and clans seeking to raise their status join forces with the dominant invaders, turning their backs on their brothers.
Often this treachery is in exchange for trinkets, false treaties and soon to be broken promises. The invaders too are manipulated, fed false information as a means of settling old scores and petty squabbles.
Demise of Wall Street, Acrylic on canvas, 20� x 16�
Falsely secure in feelings of power and control, dominant baboons will lower their guard and fail to keep watch. This leaves them open to attack by subordinate troops. When attacked they will lash out violently on troops across the savanna, causing death and mayhem in all directions.
This reaction sometimes leads to the fall of the dominant troop itself. Subordinate troops waiting in the wings watch silently as the dominant group weakens. At the opportune moment, the subordinate troop lunges out, crushing the dominant troop and replacing them as the new leader.
Crucifixion on Wall Street, Acrylic on canvas, 70” x 62”
Social Suicide (detail above), Acrylic on canvas, 68� x 48�
In the paranoid war against fear, human beings are objectified, labeled and categorized as targets or suspects. As labels, they may be tortured, experimented on, imprisoned or executed at will. Often, as in the background of Social Suicide, they may just be hanging out having some coffee, when they are accosted, detained or blown to pieces. In Dissecting Terror, Gumby, who we remember as an innocent childhood TV character and rubber toy, is performing an act of medical torture. Innocence has been lost, childlike naivete has been manipulated and transformed Gumby into a fiend. Rubber brained, ignorant, narcissistic and indifferent, Gumby has no guilt.
Dissecting Terror, Acrylic on wood, 10” x 8”
Jack in The Tank, Acrylic on canvas, 24� x 20�
War is now a game in which suspects are neutralized on a video screen. Toy weapons and violent video games manipulate and condition the minds of children, moulding them to be proponents of remote controlled killing.
Escape from Toy Land, Acrylic on canvas, 78” x 68”
General Colon Bowel, Acrylic on canvas, 14” x 12”
Used and discarded like soiled paper.
George Washington in Hell, Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 20”
Trapped in a sea of wealth and greed.
Chicken Soup (detail above), Acrylic on canvas, 56” x 42”
Cowardice knows no boundaries.
The genie is Out of The Bottle, but the horrors unleashed were not imagined or foreseen. Western religious icons have been reduced to parodic, comic monsters. Looking down from the heavens, their influence has all the spiritual power and virtue of a bad Hollywood movie.
Treading the Road to Ruin (next page) Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 38”
Out of The Bottle Acrylic on canvas 72” x 60”
Liberty Os (detail at left), Acrylic on canvas, 56” x 42”
Next page: Great Men of War, Acrylic on canvas, 46” x 70”
Slut-o for President, Acrylic on canvas, 74” x 64”
Victory Party in Iraq, Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 18”
Victory is celebrated at home and abroad. Immoral politicians use it to cynically garner votes for political campaigns. Abroad the conquered have been liberated and join in our culture. Released from her cultural shroud, the Iraqi woman is now free to display her flesh and dance naked before men.
Titan of Capital Acrylic on canvas 20� diameter
The Titan of Capital, worms eating at his dead brain, looms bug eyed and soulless above the conquered landscape, smoldering in ruins.