M.A.D.
2025 98cmx98cm - Enamel and acrylic on wood
Reclaimed hardwood frame (DM for more info)
Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) is a military doctrine where two nuclear-armed states are so powerful that a full-scale attack by one would result in the complete annihilation of both, deterring a first strike due to the guaranteed catastrophic retaliation.
When growing up, military design held some kind of magic.The sleek, fast looking shapes, the color codings and camouflage. The WW2 war planes such as the Spitfire, P-51 Mustang, P-38 Lightning were my favorite and I made scale models of them. We grew up with stories of the war, stories of great evil and heroism, the good vs. the bad.
The amount of effort we humans expend to produce weapons is amazing and frightening to me. When new technology is developed, the first question is often, how can we kill someone with it? There is something very archaic and primitive about this obsession with aggression. The magic of sleekly shaped steel and aluminium cutting through the air at hyper speeds is gone. Now I am confronted everyday with images showing what it looks like when sharp metal cuts through human bodies.
