Karma is pleased to present My American Dream: This Land is Your Land, a solo exhibition by Keith Mayerson.
'This Land is Your Land is the latest chapter of a personal project called My American Dream, a narrative series that I began twenty years ago after witnessing the attack in New York on September 11th, 2001. I felt that the 9/11 crisis was a call to action for me to focus on the forces that make American Dreams become realities. I rendered the images that inspired me and gave me hope—the cultural icons, civil rights leaders, family scenes, and sublime landscapes that represent what is at stake for me and family and country. After thirty years with my husband Andrew Madrid (and twelve years of our legal marriage), the narrative continues: My American Dream celebrates the icons that made our domestic dream possible and made America something to cherish and love. The heroes of my life, from childhood to now, give me guidance, faith, and solace. I hope to communicate their spirit to the viewer: they are worthy of memorialisation as reminders that our country's democracy is worth saving.
All the works in the show depict philosophers and activists, cultural leaders and icons, and American vistas that have captivated and influenced me deeply. Each of them symbolise how the American Dream is forged by dream seekers of all kinds. I created this series of paintings and drawings to help me process our moment, focusing on the heroic guardian angels that light our way in dark times. Together, as a narrative installation, I think of this body of work as a panoramic tableau: like Duccio di Buoninsegna's The Temptation of Christ on the Mountain at the Frick Museum (as appropriated in a painting for this exhibition) that was originally just one panel of a huge alterpiece in Siena, I also hope that each work can stand on its own, as in the individual panels of a cathedral fresco.
My American Dream is a cosmology of the America we live in. This Land is Your Land focuses on the profound transformational leaders that have made that dream possible today. With inspiration, optimism, and hope, we can learn from our past to continue to build an awesome future.'
—Keith Mayerson
Press release courtesy Karma.
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