Jason Nixon’s Blank Gaze Looming Over the Rockies Like an Evil Sun
This is a painting of the glorious rocky mountains under the dull, confused visage of the minister of environment, Jason Nixon. Jason Nixon stands out from the other four Jasons in the UCP caucus by being the party’s token Lennie: a massive goon, beefy hamhands like rotisserie chickens, pockets bursting at the seams with dead mice. Lennie is a character In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men a treatise on loneliness, self-respect, backdropped by a sultry will-they-won’t-they great depression eroticism. He is an enormous idiot who humbly wants to “live offa the fatta the lan’”. Here in ‘berta, pasty orc Jason Nixon is no different. Living through the highest provincial deficit and record joblessness, he wants to live a simple life on “the fatta the greazy kickbacks (he’ll) get from Australian companies literally blowing up the rockies with dynamite while building open pit coal mines”
The Goodwill price tag on the bottom right is a meta-textual interrogation of perception and value in late capitalist abstract investment markets, and the fact that our govt fuckin hates us
Oh also, this painting is haunted as shit. Look into Jason’s stulted gaze and recite the 164 provincial parks he’s delisting in order of viability as private clubs where we’ll be hunted for sport by the eight people that have benefited from the UCP, and he’ll crawl right out and murder your pet horse.
24x40, acrylic and oil pastel on paper
(“bUt YoU uSeD OiL tO mAkE tHiS pAiNtInG! cHeCkMaTe!” -internet guy)
October 13, 2020