Artists, if they have any obligation to their culture, are obligated in times like these to tell the truth that strips away denial, to tell us what we need to know to lead honest lives, make moral choices, and advance the cause of hope in our communities. When politicians, corporations and the major media are complicit in hiding the truth, the burden on artists is immense. Natasha Mayers has always assumed that burden. And, if there was ever a show that was more than the sum of its parts, her Signs of the Times is it.
With these constellations of potent images, Natasha decodes the mystifying density of symbol and sham and lets them sound like sirens. She presents the colorful bars and stripes of military decorations and exposes what is really being honored and rewarded. But their purpose is the opposite of what you might expect. Yes, they are shouting, “Emergency!” But they are not telling you to be fearful and run for cover. They are not telling you to let the experts handle it. Instead, the paintings are asking you to stop and think and feel and act. With the little girl scout who hides her eyes from the dark swirl of bones and skulls engulfing her, Natasha is saying our innocence is long gone when the witnessing eye of the torture victim is also the eye of the storm, is the “I” addicted to oil, and the eye of fire at the top of a smokestack. All our symbols are complicit in an unsustainable, hypocritical, and violent life style. See the hand that fondles the clouds and makes them weep. See the reduction of human lives to speed bumps before the juggernaut of imperial power. As art, Natasha’s paintings succeed because they transcend broadside. Full of ambiguity, humor, allusion, and innuendo they invite the viewer to collaborate in finding meaning. They are powerfully and intensely painted, their raw, bright, patterned style perfectly matching their message. She uses her immense imagination to tease layers of meaning out of images. A fearful helicopter gunship becomes a heart with rotors becomes a flying charnel house becomes the big brother eye in the sky. Installed in poetic groupings, they seem like gnarled musical phrases, the visual representation of snarls and moans, snickers and sighs. When I was visiting Natasha’s studio to preview the show, she asked me, in looking at the paintings, if I saw hope anywhere. I said yes because there can be no hope without the truth. Until we are willing to face the worst aspects of our culture, we can not begin the process of reclamation. Natasha’s paintings command us to open our eyes, to see through the hype, the fear, the patriotic myth, the symbol. They are saying that if we care for ourselves, we must care for each other.
