Biography
“Mommy, Mommy, I want to shoot the terrorist,” squealed an excited young boy, as if that statement uttered with glee, held the same weight as ordering ice cream. Without fully understanding the true weight and meaning of his statement, the boy ran across the boardwalk perpendicular to us, looking for an empty trigger to wrap his tiny finger around, while my soon-to-be-deployed fiancé and I stopped and stared.
Is this a harmless way to let off some steam post 9-11 in a deeply wounded area?
Can I find similar stands elsewhere in NJ, NY, the tri-state area, east coast, west coast?
The more I thought about this, the more questions that were raised. A few months later, post-deployment, this image haunted me and hence the motivation to paint the image as documentation.
Regardless of your position about the war, war dehumanizes on both sides. This dehumanization is a necessary survival skill when confronted with life or death. In the painting, the dehumanization is symbolized by the robot-like dangling legs and feet and the paint smeared faces on the targets.
The size of the painting allows the viewer to step away from the scene at hand, mimicking my original position on the boardwalk. This distance allows the viewer to step away from the situation and to simultaneously witness the inescapable incongruence of the scene. The man sitting next to the ATM, which was added during the painting process, is the only figure to show some emotion to contrast with the indifferent facial expressions among the group.
This year, when I revisited the scene to snap a few more photos, the name of the stand changed to “Shoot The Guido.” Society, even without war, can also dehumanize by reducing individuals or groups to crude stereotypes and labels.
