Cave Painting #22: Probably
Is A Duck
Terry Brewer (Santa Fe, NM)
Mixed media on panel, 18” W x 24” H
Artwork:
This image was inspired by the outrage caused by Elon Musk's and other’s alarming public use of the Nazi salute and the resulting spin claiming it was a Roman salute or just an innocuous gesture of love. Adolf Hitler is depicted wearing a Roman helmet ominously showered by an unseen dark cloud and flanked by three ducklings symbolizing the expression “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck”.
Artist Statement:
While working as a volunteer in Nepal I made numerous treks in the Himalayas. As I traveled across the land, I was reminded how modernization, social upheaval and climate change was rapidly altering the fragile nature of the environment and culture. I pondered prehistoric depictions of now extinct species left by early humans and I imagined how a variety of our successors around the planet, in a possible not-too-distant future world, might render the endangered and extinct species of our time and theirs. What materials will be used, what style? Think post-apocalypse cave paintings. As this series develops, I’ve been inspired, if that’s the best word, by the current social and political climate, and veered a bit off specific endangered species, and allowed the obvious threat to all life on earth to be treated as subjects. How this future scenario plays out is anyone’s guess and limited by one’s imagination. One thing certain is that surviving sapiens will continue to leave a mark.