The amount of money and time we waste in this country is always under scrutiny. Ron English takes this controversy to new heights. His art screams modern pop culture. He will boldly display what most people are thinking. His billboards are filled with controversy and that is just the way he likes it.
He makes no excuses for what he represents. English says that he is only speaking the truth and dispute is something he never shies away from. He attacks our everyday bombardment of capitalism through advertisements. He takes the original and changes it into his pop art.In his essay, Ways of Seeing, John Berger maintains that “History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past.
Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past” (11). The dictionary defines mystification as, “the activity of obscuring people's understanding, leaving them baffled or bewildered” (dictionary. com). English is my hero for doing exactly that.
He leaves no questions as to what he is trying to convey in his art. He spreads his message in his artwork that he sells all over the world, sending the same meaning of corporate greed and unhealthy politics.English also has other wonderful pieces of art that capture the innocent eyes of children. Their faces lure you in because they he draws with such detail that they appear life-like.
The sweet little cherubs with their expression of love, need and want are also depicted with a camel cigarette puffing out of their mouths. This changes the whole image of the sugary little child looking at you with glossy eyes. His communication of how gluttonous our tobacco companies have become to keep up sales. They target our children.
Everything that English exposes is truth.Even if someone does not agree with every topic he targets, one cannot deny how fearlessly he communicates with his audience. The colors for the pop art that English depicts for the MacDonald’s propaganda billboard are creepy and eerie. The picture is designed for the reader to feel sick with dark crimson hues looming overhead.
The use of the reds and dark grays add to the putrid feeling a consumer is supposed to get while looking at the billboard. Placing the clown off to the side instead of in the middle is aesthetic and more pleasing to the eye. It is a good way of displaying the main feature in a painting.There is a mathematical reasoning why utilizing the blank space on a canvas is wise thing to do.
Phillip Russell writes, “Research into the aesthetics of the proportions of simple figures has a long history. This research is dominated by the search for empirical support for the notion that figures embodying the so-called golden section have special aesthetic significance. As it applies to simple figures, the golden section is a ratio of two parameters of a figure, such as the longer and shorter sides of a rectangle, of approximately 0. 618 (or its reciprocal, 1. 618)” (ProQuest).
If you take a subject and place it in the very center of a square it will not have the same effect for the viewer as it does when placed off to one side. Presentation is the key when displaying art. Art and math complement one another flawlessly. McDonald’s uses a happy bright red in their advertisements. It is the red that stimulates the appetite, appealing to the parents of the kids screaming in the backseat for a happy meal. I am bemused by the way advertisements easily lead us into believing we and/or our children cannot live without their convenient product.
If I was driving down the highway and saw this billboard with the sneering clown I would think it was an ad for the next Steven King novel and not the fun loving crazy clown associated with my kids favorite French-fries. Chemicals fill the bellies of the masses in our modern way of eating food. There is no nutritional value in the “value” meal. Pop art is doing what it has always done.
Causing the consumer to think about what they are supporting when they purchase these products or fall into the trap of believing in our shady politics.English is not interested in his critics. He wants his message to be about bringing art to regular people. He saw the billboards around everywhere as a great way to get art to the public. Whatever is dominating in the news, you can bet that English will have a billboard or a piece of art depicting how the community really feels. Anyone can get a reproduction of English’s artwork.
The posters are very affordable. Once you have it framed professionally, you can hang it in your living room or maybe the entry way so that people see it as soon as they walk in.It is loud art and I am thankful that he has no shame in allowing his art to be reproduced for the ordinary person to purchase and then bring home and hang on their wall. I imagine I am strolling along the sidewalk in the city of New York, coming upon a group of people with ladders, buckets and paint rollers. They are rolling out what looks like another billboard selling another something of what we do not really need.
The new sign starts showing itself and an ugly angry clown emerges. Clowns are not my favorite subject to see, but I have to watch because what could that clown possibly be selling.Then it appears, an English original right in front of me; and sure enough, I forgot my camera. Moving closer, I can smell the glue that they use to stick over the former advertisement.
The colors are vivid and bold. The message of what we are feeding our children on a regular basis has absolutely no nutrition. I am amused by English and love what he brings to the world. To be there from start to finish would be amazing. In reality, I would be grateful to see any of his billboards in person, but most especially the one I chose, grateful that I got the opportunity to see the display of one of my idols in the art world.
Explicit and daring are two words that come to mind when describing English. He is often compared to the late Andy Warhol who was the propaganda icon of the 1960s and 1970s. According to the Oxford reference online, “Warhol’s second exhibition was a sensational success and Warhol soon became the most famous figure in American Pop art. He adopted the screen-print process, which allowed unlimited replication. His practice was very different from the fine art limited edition screen-print as produced in the period by artist such as Paolozzi and Kitaj” (3).I thought this was a thought-provoking quotation because of the one word, replication.
Like English, Warhol wanted his art to seen by all. He wanted to be able to reproduce at a faster rate than painting freehand. Reproduction can be a double-edged sword. It takes away from the awe of standing in front of what the artist touched, maybe just hours beforehand. This is an incredible feeling. I have seen great works of art in person and there is nothing quite as inspiring in seeing King Tut’s exhibition rather than looking at it in the National Geographic.
When I see the same thing in a magazine or book, I am reminded of how much greater the experience was to behold it in person. Reproduction does however link the world together by creating a bridge. That bridge is what separates us from a time not too long ago where the everyday person did not get to see much of any art because of social status and or income. If a person did not meet the class standard of the time when only the rich could see beautiful works of art, they were left in the dust to just wonder what it would be like to go to an art exhibit. You don't have to be a millionaire to buy art,” said Scotsman Will Ramsay (Founder of Affordable Art Fair 1999), who a decade ago came up with a scheme to offer cutting edge art at cut-rate prices at Affordable Art Fairs — a concept catching on across the globe” (The China Post).
The colors English uses depict exactly what he is conveying in his billboard regarding the nutritional value of the food made by the biggest fast food icon in the world. Everyone across the globe knows McDonalds. His colors look chemical without even the use of the word in the text. To see one of these billboards in person would be an inspiring thing.
English himself states that, “I am not ashamed of what I do. I create a visual vocabulary of the world to view. I use silkscreen like Warhol did. It is quite a process of real reproduction technique and it creates a weird that works. I wake up at four in the morning because I am so excited about what I do, I just want to get up and do it” (20 minutes with Ron English 2009).
In Berger’s view, “For the first time ever, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free. They surround us in the same way as a language surrounds us” (32).I disagree when he states that our art has become insubstantial. The art I have chosen definitely does not lack material or take on an unreal form.
It confuses matters when he writes that our art is valueless. How can art be everywhere yet not worth anything. Free yes. Without worth, I do not think so. Worth is in the perception of the person viewing the art, whether it is right in front of them or a duplicate that has been processed for mass appeal. My view concerning English’s work is that it can be worth millions of dollars to one while another can say they would not pay a penny for his art.
It is a very personal thing. English considers himself the modern day Robin Hood of Madison Avenue. Born and raised Dallas, TX, English earned his undergraduate art degree at the University of North Texas and his MFA at University of Texas in Austin. As a young man just out of college, English was going to be a photographer. He decided he wanted to pursue his painting and that is when he started the idea of stealing billboards from corporate America and giving some of it back to the people. His experience as a photographer has only enhanced his artwork.
He is able to utilize the two art forms together, creating his own rand of unique art. His art will be left for the future residents of this world. It will be a window into the lives of the 20th and 21st century human race. He demands commercial America to own up on the bull they feed to the masses of consumers, his family included. He does not pretend to believe that what he is doing is legal.
He knows what the penalties are if arrested. English paints to shock. To permeate and mock what is perverse in modern culture. His has pirated hundreds of different billboards. He is pivotal is leaving a blueprint of what it means to be alive right now.
We look to the past by observing art. The people of the future will get a birds-eye view of our lives when they find the art of Ron English. It was in New York during the 1960s that pop art emerged refreshed from its beginnings in England during the 1950s. Just like today, the same was true in 60s pop art, consisting of material realities of everyday life in which average people received most of their visual pleasure.
The time came when the mass reproduction of art equaled the unique piece of art. The huge gap between these two groups began to wear away.Andy Warhol was the leader of the pop art world during the period time when the Vietnam War was raging and the American way of life was a barbeque and mom’s homemade apple pie. Consumers had just started embracing the canned food craze because grocery stores started to carry more mass produced food. America loved the easy convenience of food in a can, my parents included.
I remember in the 1970s my Mom being thrilled to death that she did not have to can her own fruit, soup and vegetables anymore. She did it for fun once the commercial craze really took America by storm. It has been like a hurricane the last 40 years.Consumers are overwhelmed with choices. Our choices in food are becoming less nutritional by the day.
Warhol painted it for his time and English has taken over for our time. His appeal to the average person is growing. I believe we are all getting tired of the constant images and commercials telling us what we should buy and how great it is when in reality it really is not. Ultimately, what is at stake here is a battle between what truth is and how much money corporate America is willing to spend on their lies to the public. My discussion of English is in fact the larger matter of telling the truth.
Although English may seem of concern to only a small group of people, it should in fact concern anyone who cares about food, children, greed and freedom of speech. This epidemic has been sweeping across our nation for many years. We are at a pivotal point regarding the consumer world. Prices are getting higher; more things are produced on a mass scale, luring us into believing we need it all to survive. Our food quality also at a crucial point, we are consuming food that actually not really anything but chemicals and preservatives. English is important because he is not troubled by standing up against the lions of injustice.
