Howling winds on this day of war remembrance

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I'm briefly surfing the web today to decipher how to can and sell my homemade hot sauces. The wind is roaring outside; normal for a Kansas City afternoon. Some art of mine is going up on walls this week for an upcoming show. All around it's a good day.

On this Memorial day I'm reflecting on war in art, highlighted by a NYTimes article today; a theme also coinciding with my upcoming show. This Friday June 3rd in Kansas City will be my opening at Cara and Cabezas Contemporary, what I consider my first real show in Kansas City. I'll be accompanying an artist named Victor Cartagena; we both work in the print medium so it should be a great show in that regard. My small contribution of work is an intimate series of 8 etchings called Reasons' Monsters. These prints adopt Francisco Goya's Disasters of War series and re-set them during today's contemporary wars. As I realized today, when I created this series we were only fighting two wars, though it's three now...right? Does Libya count? What about our campaigns in Pakistan and elsewhere? Anyway, it's normalcy in the U.S. to be fighting somewhere else in the world.

Mostly I wanted to let people know that these prints will finally be on display, and if you're in KC stop by to see them on Friday if you can (they're also open on Saturdays or by appointment). Believe it or not, the drawings from this series, and the smaller set of prints have not seen many gallery walls. I've tried many times, and been rejected. As art goes, it brings up unsettling subject matter. Like Botero's Abu Ghraib works, or Otto Dix's images of atrocities, these pieces strike at the heart of the ongoing cycle of human conflict, tying contemporary events to historical similarities. Here's a quote from the press release,

"By conflating Goya's compositions with images from our current media, Naughton connects our present to the past, showing that history does repeat itself. Like Goya’s original etchings, Naughton’s series reflects things real and imagined. His creative responses differ little from our media, both being removed and only representation."

Here's the facebook invite if you're interested in coming.