Illuminati Shootout
Acrylic, watercolor, transfer print, and ball-point pen on watercolor paper. Poplar frame. 13.5 x 21”
The idea for Illuminati shoot-out started with the wonderful medical illustration of an eye, found in a vintage medical text.
The Illuminati, a secret group of individuals that control the world with some kind of dark power, is the grand-daddy of all conspiracy theories—going all the way back to the 1500s!
The idea of the Illuminati is so pervasive it permeates our pop culture from the Simpsons to Beyonce!
I started to think about how, to a really paranoid person, anything evil from a tornado, to a politician’s heart attack, to your bank overdraft fee, could be attributed to this all-powerful, everywhere-at-once cabal.
How do you fight that? It’s action movie crazy! Hence, this artwork, featuring a 1980s style hero with our wilting blonde in need of protection. How is he going to defeat the flying mystical eyes of the Illuminati? With guns and machismo, of course!