Corrupt Foundation

Oil / Collage on canvas wrap 30"x 40"

Colonization: The action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area, or country. This painting took three months to complete and represents the gross negative effect of colonization in America. The building represents America on a crumbling foundation. This story begins like an archeological dig from the bottom to the top. The lowest level depicts the land before colonization with words like freedom, ancestral land, tradition, embracing with pottery chards and arrow flints showing community life with the land. Then Colonization came and the land changed. Each stone on the canvas was made from polymer clay with the help of my sister, Dianne Quarles who showed me how to prep the clay, impress the words and bake the clay before applying them to the canvas. Words such as envy, slavery, hate, war, syphilis, lies, deception, terrorism, power, domination, and many more overpowering attributes that came along with colonization are represented. The bones and skeletons represent the genocide of people and animals that created the corrupt foundation. Last is the almost invisible American flag draped like a shroud over this reality to show the blindness and apathy of many white Americans to the actual facts of their beginnings on this continent.