One of the reasons I often use historical and/or mythological subjects is to avoid the knee-jerk reactions & emotions that accompany present-day persons and events. I wish the viewer to respond and react to the artwork, not their feeling about a specific someone or something that they already embrace or reject. But the recent white supremacist resurgence, led by Trump, and the Capitol Insurrection of 2021 have felt so urgent and pervasive that this imagery has invaded my visual thinking. Throughout my work, but particularly here, I am a white Jewish man trying to address my country, and my place and responsibilities in it. I still want these forms to be just outside of the viewer’s ability to completely judge. Figure and ground dissipate when one tries to grasp them in absolutes. Just like the American character —beautiful, atrocious —these forms exist in muddy water.