Tribal Portrait: Beauty and Brutality
An artist's look at Duality in all things
Salt lake City Main Library: January 2007
This exhibit observes the destructive and restorative cycles that we as humans have perpetuated since the beginning: War, Brutality, Greed, Hope, Redemption, Purification and Rebirth.
Painting: OPERATION RESTORE HOPE
The title for my exhibit, Tribal Portrait, came to me last fall when I was headed for Namibia, Africa. I thought that I'd do something having to do with apartheid and the Namibians struggle for independence in the 1980's. But then I really started thinking about the word Tribal. The Struggle in Namibia was racially based — black against white, but then I thought Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, Arab Tribes vs. African Tribes in Sudan, in the Middle East Jewish Tribes and Arab Tribes, sometimes its Christian against Islamic as in Bosnia, Rwanda the Hutus ethnic cleansing of the Tutsis and the examples go back thousands of years. There are tribes within tribes in the US, but collectively we could be called the tribe of the oil seekers, or the seekers of material goods, or maybe the tribe that proliferates weapons. The United States, Russia, and France collectively sold 44 billion dollars worth of small arms in 2004. Amnesty International estimates that small arms are responsible for 50 — 75% of all human rights abuses worldwide.
Historically our early ancestors would compete with large carnivores and other clans for available food in a small, but rich location. If we look at our ancestor the Chimpanzee, we see that they will appropriate their neighbors territory, if they strong enough to do it. It may have nothing to do with survival, but more to do with strength and greed. Today, our tribal sensitivity is still intact in our DNA and we are surprisingly predictable. If we are to rethink our situation, it will involve change but, significantly deviating from our fifty thousand year old programming will be unlikely. The message then, as now, is kill, consume, and survive. The present problem is that there is nowhere else to go as we are cutting the last of the rain forest, extracting the last of the oil, polluting our water, air and soil. The Cosmic Serpent that manifests through ancient tribal shaman could not be more relevant than it is today. We have come face to face with the demon that devours its own tail and it is us. Until we dream that universal tribal dream that tells us we must begin to see the other species, the entire planet, and ourselves as one organism we will continue devouring ourselves until there is nothing left. I believe that our ancient ancestors knew that this day would come and that we would distract ourselves until the very last moment. We are very predictable. The book Our Inner Ape by Frans De Waal, relates an experiment he devised to show how much nonverbal dominance we demonstrate through our vocal frequency and our body movement. He contends that we still operate on an ancient set of survival techniques. I believe that we are starting to evolve those techniques and thinking about fundamental changes.
America used to be the melting pot of the ideals of freedom, education and opportunity. China and India are following our example and replacing culture with consumerism. Peak Oil, the last gasp of the oil era is bringing out the worst in America. Our government is sending our young people to die trying to secure the Middle East and our access to oil that we feel we are divinely entitled to. We are beginning to see ourselves having many alternative solutions to our perceived need for oil.
Again, our government wanted to test bombs in Utah's west desert in order to come up with a nuclear bunker buster bomb. The the bomb named Divine Strake was cancelled due to determination of local citizens who remember the deceit, danger, and death from the nuclear testing of the last century.
Assemblage:Flags Of War and Peace
"My art has always been my teacher," those words were spoken to me by a young artist named Gavin Noyes. I, too, find that if I follow my art — the images, the icons, the assemblages, the paintings, that they will manifest into understanding and possibly action — that the practice of art frees me up to think and do things that I wouldn't normally do, either the actions wouldn't occur to me or I would not see myself as able. The practice of art allows me to change my mind, to change my actions. This is the power of creativity. It is the power that evokes change. So as I get older, I hope that I am becoming more open, more flexible, more able to change habits that has governed my ancestors and me for thousands of years.
Buddha Nature, 48" x 60" mixed media on canvas
As we gather our long history behind us and wake up to see our fragile position on the planet, and we learn to take our place as part of the fabric of a larger system, we will start to embrace our differences as well as our similarities. Maybe it is time not to let go of our Tribalism, but to expand it in ever widening circles which embrace all members of the planet — including humans, other species, air, water, dirt — the entire planet. It feels like a time for nurturing, conserving, and honesty.