Red White n Bluebeard is a painting created during the first presidential campaign of Teflon Don of the Wild Rumpus. It is based on the folk story of Bluebeard, a cautionary tale for wives who dare to disobey their husbands, from the days when women were considered little more than property. Sadly, this is still the case in many countries, daughters are basically sold off to the highest bidder. Imagine the fear, not knowing what awaits, whether your new husband, often a complete stranger, will be kind or a demon. (It’s how new pets feel, too).
Bluebeard is a magician of sorts, he gives his new bride a set of keys, upon leaving for a voyage, telling her open any door except one. Of course curiosity gets the better of her, and she discovers hanging in the forbidden room are the bloody corpses of his 6 previous wives. And the enchanted key is now permanently bloodstained. Innocence forever lost, forbidden knowledge akin to death. Fortunately her brothers end up arriving just in the nick of time to kill Bluebeard before he can make her number 7.
Acrylic mediums and oil pastel on wood, set in an authentic, hand cut, antique folk wooden frame all the way from 1930s Poland. SIZE: about 15 x 20 inches.
The painting is not a portrait of the (soon to once again be) president, but rather a personification or allegory of the rage and racism that had begun rearing it’s ugly head in the US – permissible and encouraged – during his rise to power. The figure wears a mask that has become melded with his face. He both hates and fears the screaming people caught in his red white n blue beard. Inspiration was drawn from the contorted victims in Picasso’s Guernica, to illustrate those without rights or power, caught in the hairy flames and begging for mercy.
Recently, Rumpus has made ‘jokes’ about Canada entering into an arranged marriage, shall we say, with the US, which I won’t repeat here. Many have noted his characteristic, tactical trolling, bullying, belittling. But it is also a form of hexing. Rumps is a magician skilled in word sorcery (Gemini Sun/Uranus). He well understands that all that is required is for a thorny little seed or egg to be planted in the collective mind, hypnotically repeated as a command to the subconscious, and it will grow there like a parasite until it bears ugly fruit. Rather like that frienemy who casually insinuates your spouse might be cheating. (How interesting his new health minister literally had a brain worm). This is how subliminal advertising has always worked, and he is a walking advertisement, set to (once again) head TV Nation. Don’t buy it, Canada. You know what’s behind that door.
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