Not always a pretty picture
Political art doesn’t sell in SLO County, but nevertheless several local artists continue to choose message over profit
By Patrick S. Pemberton
The Tribune

ppemberton@thetribunenews.com

When Cold War tensions threatened to erupt in the 1960s, Mark Bryan’s mother instructed him on what to do if the Soviets dropped The Bomb nearby:

Take cover immediately after the flash, she said, then come straight home.

"I worried about getting blown up all the time," Bryan remembered.

As a paranoid 12-year-old, Bryan feared an encounter with atomic warfare. More than 40 years later, violence is still on his mind. But now he’s able to express his feelings about it through art that lampoons politicians and the military industrial complex.

"I’m not a good writer, I don’t like to throw Molotov cocktails and I don’t have a bunch of money to put into a cause. So it’s like: What can you do?" said Bryan, of Arroyo Grande. "Well ... I can paint."

Artists who make a political statement hope to leave a lasting impression.

In the early 1800s, Francisco Goya’s graphic "The Disasters of War" series portrayed the murder, torture and terror that accompanied Napoleon’s invasion of Spain. And in the 1960s, Corita Kent — whose work is currenlty on display at the San Luis Obipso Art Center — designed Serigraphs that protested the Vietnam War. In 1937, Pablo Picasso — not known for his political art — created "Guernica," an abstract mural portraying a massacre unleashed by fascists in Spain.

Despite those inspirational examples, not many local artists delve into overtly political art. For one thing, political art usually alienates some people. And it rarely sells.

"I don’t think people are going to have dead babies hanging in their living room," said David Settino Scott, explaining why no one will ever buy his most charged work, "The Practice of Art."

The piece appears on a series of altar-style wooden panels that open up to different scenes. In one panel, soldiers gun down civilians in a modern subdivision. Another depicts a ghastly scene in hell, with an angel of death regurgitating bodies, a woman eating babies and arms dealers toting deadly weapons.

"I got to put everybody in hell that I hate," Scott said at his San Miguel studio. "What I really hate is arms dealers and people who profit from war."

Scott has sold considerable

work (his clients include celebrities Anthony Hopkins and Whoopi Goldberg), but what he sells are paintings of flowers and nude models.

Still, he creates political art, he said, because he’s socially conscious and feels compelled to express his feelings about society.

"We live in an insane world," he said. "There’s no getting around it."

While Scott’s political art never features recognizable faces, both Mark Bryan and San Luis Obispo painter Steven deLuque paint well-known political figures.

Bryan’s magnum opus is a 7-foot-long oil painting depicting the Mad Tea Party. Stealing attention from the "Alice in Wonderland" characters are members of the current administration, hawkishly joyous as Vice President Dick Cheney encourages a diminutive and goofy-looking President Bush to carve up a cake of the world.

"Political art is like political cartoons," Bryan said. "You push things. You exaggerate to make a point."

DeLuque’s painting of Condoleezza Rice ("Condi-Kali") is more graphic, portraying a naked secretary of state stepping on corpses while holding a military rifle and a speared eagle. Her skin is dark blue, a devilish long tongue protrudes from her mouth and a necklace of decapitated heads adorns her neck.

"It started out not being quite so vehemently graphic," he said. "But the more and more I got into it, it wasn’t saying what I wanted to communicate."

Some of deLuque’s work is so disturbing, he actually posted a warning during a recent Open Studios Tour, advising viewer discretion.

While the response political artists get is generally favorable, not everyone appreciates the statements they make.

In a guest book for one of Scott’s shows, a visitor wrote: "You are a very depressing, lonely, sick person, and I feel for you."

DeLuque’s work has garnered a few anti-American accusations. And one man, upon reading his Open Studios warning, said, "Oh, so you’re one of those damned liberals."

"I said, ‘Actually, I consider myself fairly centrist. It’s just that the Republicans have swung so far right, they’re fascists,’" deLuque said.

Another thing about political artists: They’re overwhelmingly liberal.

There are conservative artists out there, but they seldom paint political art.

Joy Ramirez, an Atascadero artist, has been a Republican since the 1950s. While she has done a couple of social commentary pieces, she hasn’t been inspired to do political art — even when President Clinton provided easy fodder with his Lewinsky affair.

"I did feel very strongly about what he did," she said. "But I didn’t express it in my clay. I just worked it out by banging my clay around."

For her, not doing political art is just a preference. Others don’t want to face the potential backlash.

A sexually suggestive sculpture of Clinton and Lewinsky was pulled from the California State Fair in 2001. And last summer, California’s attorney general — a Democrat — ordered a painting critical of Bush out of the department’s independently owned cafe. More locally, a Santa Maria ceramist’s "No War" signs from a 2003 exhibit stirred emotions at the San Luis Artists Gallery, causing a deep divide among the co-op that ultimately contributed to its demise.

Ramirez, who now says she is having second thoughts about Bush, said she supports political expression, even if she disagrees with it.

"I just want to see artists make their statement," she said. "Whatever it is — stand up and be counted and don’t be afraid."

Some artists might not even have a chance to encounter backlash since there are few venues locally to exhibit controversial material. Gallery owners, after all, have to make a profit. And since it’s already difficult to keep a gallery afloat, many owners choose not to offend potential buyers.

Local artists say the Steynberg Gallery in San Luis Obispo is the only gallery that will show overt political art.

"If we can’t make a statement, God help us," said Peter Steynberg, owner of the gallery.

Steynberg’s gallery isn’t limited to political art — African art has always sold there -— but he’s proven that you can sell it. (A recent Bryan exhibit sold several pieces.) And thus far, he said, the reaction to the political art has been good, even though a majority of the county’s residents are conservative.

Good political art has to balance making a statement with creating visually appealing images — not always easy if you need blood and gore to make your point.

"I think it’s got to be beautiful," Scott said. "It reaches the sublime if you can pull it off."

Scott’s dark and moody paintings recall the painters of the Renaissance, while his detailed sculptures (including a series on immolated monks) offer subtle yet equally dramatic messages. DeLuque’s brightly colored and adeptly mixed acrylics provide an ironic contrast to the dark images they depict. And Bryan’s cartoonish approach brings levity to even the most serious topics, though he can also handle more serious images, like a portrait of Bush made up of skulls.

While their styles are different, the intensity of the message is the same. In fact, Scott and Bryan both recalled recent paintings they started but just couldn’t finish.

Bryan’s was a Cheney painting that depicted the vice president with a mechanical heart fueled by gasoline and rats. Scott’s was a couple of panels depicting execution walls and buried bones.

"I destroyed them," Scott said. "I said, ‘I want to listen to Mozart. This is a bad place to go.’"

Eventually, he gathered his paints and fell back on a more uplifting subject:

Flowers.
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