Letter to the President Painting

“O sultan, Turkish devil and damned devil's kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are you, that can't slay a hedgehog with your naked arse? The devil excretes, and your army eats. You will not, you son of a bitch, make subjects of Christian sons; we've no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, fuck your mother“ The above is excerpt from a 17h century letter written by Zaporozhian Cossacks (inhabitants of modern day Ukraine) to the Turkish Sultan in response to his demands to surrender or face annihilation. Ilya Repin (an iconic Russo-Ukrainian 19th century painter) reimagined the historic moment of the Ottoman Empire’s campaign to expand through the painting Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, depicting the soldiers crafting their letter replying to imperialist demands. When the newly founded Ukrainian government became mired in conflict with Russian-backed rebels in March 2014, thousands of volunteers trekked to Eastern Ukraine to defend their land. The historic significance and iconic status of Repin’s painting, were brought back to life by Ukrainian soldiers currently fighting in the Donbas region who spontaneously recreated the scene at their barracks and captured by Babylon’13 (a fantastic group of Ukrainian cinematographers). When I came across the video footage of the reenactment of Repin’s Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, I was inspired to paint a contemporary variation of the tableaux. The resulting history painting, Letter to the Tzar, questions notions of reality within the information war where Ukrainians found themselves. The inversion of the clothing and weapons of the volunteer soldiers into its photographic negative is a metaphor for the skewed, mediated and disinformed reality, orchestrated by decision makers behind closed doors, in which citizens find themselves. The background seamlessly merges from what at first appears to be a normal pastoral scene of some tree on the left, into an army night vision viewing filter on the right referencing militarization of civilian population to serve the needs and goals of the ruling class. In the middle of the background, patches of a flat green screen color appear underneath the foliage alluding to a chroma key technique (in film and video, chroma key allows moving subjects to be separated from their environment and superimposed onto an entirely different scene, thus manipulating their environment). By painting several filters of reality in the same picture I hope to shine a light on the confusion and chaos experienced by individuals. Conflicting narratives of patriotism and conspiracy theories as amplified in mass media as agents of a power struggle to shape the meta-narratives of unfolding events. By painting the flesh of the soldiers in this way I aim to emphasize their humanity and to speak of the conflated hyper reality they, and we, find ourselves in amidst information wars.

Painting:Oil on Canvas

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:82.7 W x 63 H x 2 D in

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