Southern Californian artists mocked oppressive bureaucratic norms through paintings, collages and photos on Saturday in the political art exhibit, “In God We Tru$t.”
The Picture This Gallery and Framing store played host to a gathering of opinionated artists and Long Beach residents, showcasing a collaboration of works that took on political and social extents.
“In God We Tru$t” is part of a variety of exhibits Picture This Gallery presents throughout the year, according to gallery owner Marisol Gomez.
“I thought July would be the perfect time for this political exhibit because of the Fourth of July and all the patriotism it brings with it,” Gomez said. “I thought, ‘Why not put something in the gallery that stirs up things a little bit?’”
Pieces like “Team U$A,” done by Cal State Long Beach alumni Hugh van der Linden and Jill Hunter, stirred things up and stood out from the pack. The piece featured three faces familiar to Americans: those of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and Alexander Hamilton — the faces of the $5, $10 and $20 dollar bills.
“We thought that we could create collage-type paper portraits that kind of just re-image the people that were on the [U.S.] currency,” Hunter said. “For us, it was just a way of interpreting ‘In God We Tru$t’ by using the currency that we use every day and looking at it from a different angle.”
Each face was created as a different form of art. Placed on the left, Lincoln’s portrait was made up of small, uniformly cut pieces, all from a selection of a neon-colored light spectrum, which gave off the feeling that the presidential mosaic could fit in Andy Warhol’s pop-art series.
To the right, Hamilton’s face was created in a newspaper and magazine cutout collage, resulting in an unmistakable resemblance to the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. Jackson’s portrait, placed in the center of the group, was sketched upon various maps of the Los Angeles and Orange County area.
According to Hunter, the mapped background idea came from U.K. artist Ed Fairburn, whose intricate map paintings inspired Hunter and van der Linden to adapt the map-drawing approach into their own work.
“We saw some of his work and thought that it was so clever and interesting that we thought we’d try it,” Hunter said. “We tried to match the image we were going to create with a map that kind of already has some lines [to] use as guidance to assist in the formation of the portrait itself.”
The exhibit also included a piece from Los Angeles artist Robert Lebsack. Titled “Moment of Truth,” his work is backed by torn newspaper headlines, articles and ads, utilizing random word associations as social and political commentary. Atop the newspaper backing, a diapered baby sits with a gas mask covering his face, the caption underneath it reading, “Conditioning begins early…”
“When you were a little kid, you’re already bombarded in every direction from a different company, whether it’s by advertising or that kind of stuff,” Lebsack said. “I think that just kind of sums up America right there.”
“In God We Tru$t” is available for viewing Tuesday through Friday from noon to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. until the exhibit ends on July 27. The Picture This Gallery is located at 4130 Norse Way in Long Beach. Admission is free.