Kyle Hackett - Saint Obama

Saint Obama
17"x 20"x 3.5"
Oil on Canvas and Constructed Frame


I use an age old tradition of oil painting in an attempt to create a marriage between the classic and the ideas of what contemporary art should be. I suggest that contemporary ideas can have the same integrity and can exist in the same realm as the classic. Highly influenced by Early Byzantine Art, as well as Albrect Durer's Self-Portrait from the 16th century, I reference religious iconography such as depictions of Christ. I juxtapose the contemporary icon of Barrack Obama in a position of both presidential and spiritual power. However the icon is surrounded by weapons to perhaps suggest the connections between religion power and conflict.