“What does being ‘American’ feel like?”
This line from a Jonathan Holden poem begins to acknowledge the capaciousness that I associate with my chosen imagery. In the act of collecting candid photography from the midcentury, I noticed an American cliché emerging again and again. Children, mostly boys, clad in cowboy regalia and clutching cap guns in their suburban backyards or in front of a Christmas tree. At first sight, these images represent childhood innocence and play, but with a critical lens viewers might react with an nagging uneasiness. These characters are not exclusive to western states where the cattle farming industry is a hugely influential part of the economy; the cowboy has become a national symbol. I’m interested in the romanticization of American myths and the manner in which we all perpetuate them into a national identity.
There is a code of conduct for cowboys, even in the popular television westerns of the 1950s and 60s. These ersatz heroes must be hard workers, honest and fair, stoic but gentle. They are American individualism incarnate. Cowboys must be patriots. And yet, many of these figures carry out vigilante justice, acting in accordance with their own moral code in spite of the law. I struggle to understand how the romantic and white-washed narrative of the American frontier has buried itself so fully under our collective skin that we still align ourselves with its false ideals; that some are unable to determine the difference between fiction and fantasy and thus act violently under the guise of vigilantism. I think about the adults these playtime cowboys grew up to be.
By engaging with the snapshot as both archival object and image, I encourage critical viewing. Any photos that are originally black and white I will reexamine with overly-chromatic paint, hues inspired by the colorcast that occurs when photographs age. I hope that the recoloring adds a contemporary film and disrupts the temporality of the image.
I think that these paintings have a great capacity. They can be both nostalgic and critical, sentimental and distant, earnest and humorous. If it is possible to “feel” American, I feel it with conflicting emotions, and I hope that these paintings can hold them.