This installation piece was based on the historic event of the possible election of the first African American president.
Months before the primaries I’d viewed a Time Magazine cover image of Barack Obama and read his story prior to the 2008 elections. I was inspired by history in the making as momentum built for the charismatic senator from Chicago.
Based on values rather than color I decided that I wanted to vote for the senator and to display my leanings by placing a poster in the front window of my house. It just happened that a friend had volunteered to run the northern California campaign office. When I asked him for a campaign poster I was directed to an online distribution service. I didn’t seeing anything that I wanted to place in my window and decided to design and paint my own poster.
From a young age Andy Warhol’s iconic images had been a source of inspiration. The Time magazine portrait photograph of Obama combined with Warhol’s pop minimalism were the seeds of my creativity. After three failed attempts to create an image that I liked a simple large graphic black and white image was produced. I placed it in the window as a combined work of art and campaign poster. This was only the beginning…
After watching the nomination on television I went into my garage/art studio and collaged the three failed attempts into a single large image that unexpectedly began to look like Barack Obama morphed with Abraham Lincoln. Photocopied images that I'd used for developing custom furniture design drawings became exotic stars and stripes. I then worked nonstop for four days and nights on 28 collages with painted images on recycled paper, photographs, photocopies and text to create the Series.
Fueled by inspiration, history, creativity and a lack of sleep I felt more like an artist than I’d ever felt before.
In the series Obama is represented as every African American man form every era of American history. The relevance of the art remains strong. Topics that are reflected through the visual imagery have historically come to pass and have developed more meaning than when the works were created.
