Four American Presidents
Canvas
2015—01
New York, NY
Acrylic Paint and Ink on Canvas
36"x36" (approx 91.4 x 91.4 cm) each, or 72” x 72” altogether.
In this four-part series, Four American Presidents, four figures of American political power are brought together in an imagined conversation. Each portrait—rendered in black acrylic and ink on canvas—occupies a separate square measuring approximately 91.4 by 91.4 centimeters. Together, the four panels form a 2x2 grid, recalling both the format of the comic strip and the devotional order of the polyptych. This deliberate structure situates the work at the intersection of popular media and sacred imagery, hinting at the near-religious reverence with which presidential authority is often framed.
The dialogue between these presidents is constructed entirely from actual quotes drawn from their respective public records. Reassembled here, outside of their original historical and political contexts, these utterances take on new and often contradictory meanings. The resulting exchange becomes at once absurd and revelatory—a conversation that exposes the continuity of political rhetoric across time and ideology. What emerges is not so much a debate as an echo chamber, in which the language of leadership circulates endlessly, detached from consequence yet charged with symbolic weight.
Executed entirely in monochrome, the paintings reject the seduction of color in favor of stark contrast and tonal precision. The technique—fine linear hatching reminiscent of engraved printmaking—constructs volume and texture through density of line, producing figures that appear both vivid and spectral. Subtle use of chiaroscuro lends a sense of theatrical illumination, heightening the drama of each encounter. The influence of mass-printed imagery and graphic reproduction is palpable: the presidents appear not as individuals but as icons mediated through photography, print, and television.
This visual language positions Four American Presidents within a long lineage of portraiture as a tool of statecraft and image-making. Yet by appropriating the compositional logic of a comic strip—a form associated with satire, repetition, and mass circulation—the work subverts the solemnity of political representation. The four canvases operate simultaneously as discrete portraits and as narrative panels, their sequence implying continuity, causality, and the illusion of dialogue. The comic form becomes a framework through which the absurdities of power are laid bare.
At its core, the series interrogates how authority is performed, reproduced, and mythologized. The presidents are shown not in moments of decision or crisis, but in casual conversation—smoking, speaking, existing within the ambiguous space between intimacy and spectacle. Their words, though historically documented, become estranged from their original contexts and reanimated as fragments of a shared mythology. Through this reframing, Four American Presidents invites reflection on the performative nature of leadership, the persistence of political narrative, and the uneasy relationship between image, language, and power in the American imagination.