FLAGS OF AMERIKA

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© 2019/2020 Acrylic, aluminum, various sizes (approximately 45 x 30cm)

 

An ongoing series of representations of the U.S. flag, which deconstruct the design to its basic graphic elements – stars, stripes, colours. Each flag relates to a particular aspect of American society.

 

The transparent ‘Space Flag’ – was inspired by a report that the flags left by the Apollo moon landings have faded to white through exposure to ultraviolet radiation. This suggested to me the fading of the hopes and aspirations of the Space Age – ‘Old Glory’ lost its old glories.

 

‘Black Flag / Black Sites’: The “Good Old Red, White and Blue” of the USA’s flag has taken a darker turn, with revelations of “black sites”, where the United States took people to be tortured.

 

‘Confounded Flag’: This white Confederate Flag is a visual pun — the white flag of surrender which ended the American Civil War; the white supremacy of the philosophical underpinnings of the Confederacy; the whitewashing of history in trying to remove the flag from its political origins.