“I painted this picture during the summer of 2010. Oil was still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico and our national political discourse was overwhelmed by the inconsistent and often incoherent rhetoric of the Tea Party movement. From my studio, our national situation seemed horrifically absurd, and so I endeavored to make a painting that might capture how things looked to me at the time. Perhaps the image is a little heavy handed, maybe a bit unfair to Sarah Palin, but I do not think of this picture as an activist image. It is undeniably satirical, but I don’t think of it as merely a caricature. I guess I made the picture because, like many others, I find the ex-governor from Alaska to be a very poignant figure in the American cultural lexicon whose importance shouldn’t be underestimated. I wanted to see if I could make a comically ridiculous painting that was also beautiful; a portrait that is at the same time both garish and soothing.”
