Cause and Effect

Cause and Effect by Marilyn Fox, Acrylic, 50 x 54 x 1
Acrylic on Canvas - 50 x 54 x 1 - Available

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Artist Comments

CAUSE AND EFFECT - Living and working in the USA, I am not surprised that protests and demonstrations have sprung up across the country (and the globe) to give voice to racial injustice. This is not due to the murder of one black man, but it became the tipping point for awareness and the call for systemic change in our society. Many people have discussed how this incident was isolated, an anomaly. But it is clearly an effect of more than  400 years of brutality and the unjust government sponsored violence towards people of color  - the cause. The effect of this is clear: the tipping point resulted in the protests and marches. The cause now has a face, a face and voice of thousands of people who have gathered together to reveal the cause.

Protest art has been around for a long time. It is often blatant and iconic in terms of is visual language. My language, of nonobjective abstraction, requires a bit of understanding of that language.
In comparison, Robert Frost’s 1916 poem The Road Not Taken is ambiguous in its content, but not in its subtext.  The ambiguity is abstract as it gives no clear answer to the writer’s future choices, or if his decision was the correct one.
My painting CAUSE AND EFFECT requires the same type of analysis, as we are aware of the cause  but we are still unclear of the effectiveness of the the protests.
While I was working on this piece, I could hear a gathering of protesters just a few blocks away. I could hear the chanting, and the call for justice. I considered painting a narrative of these people. But that is not the language of imagery I use.
Rather, my language is nonobjective. Do you see a summer storm approaching? Or do you recall the faintest wisp of a dream?
The dialogue in this painting is interpreted by the viewer. 
My painting has consistently used gestures, colors, and shape as narrative. These narratives are open ended; the viewer can enter and add to the narrative. 

 

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