ART & IDEAS

Under the law, corporations are “persons.” In fact, the law has come to favor corporate “persons” over living people who sport the U.S. Constitution as the guarantor of American liberty. But corporations are entities that are very unlike man, for corporations are endowed with a kind of eternal life. They do not die as we do.

 

Yet no artist has ever sought to reveal the character of these remarkable entities. What do they look like? With a little imagination, converting a board of directors and a CEO’s role into images, one can easily come to the conclusion some corporations have one body and many heads. Others have one head and many bodies. Some corporations are more aggressive and ruthless than others. Although that is a negative fact, it should help make the artist’s imagination soar to unplowed fields, waiting for a new idea.

 

Consider that each corporate entity has its own culture, language, goals and modus operandi. Many are now multi-national giants with greater assets and income than some of the world’s nations. Too many of them have perfected the evil arts of fraud, deception and criminal behavior. Power and profits are immediate goals, regardless of the long-term consequences. I see giants eating up smaller companies, gorging themselves with dreams of new technologies and new markets. I see them throwing money at politicians while seeking new and far reaching governing roles. But corporations are not democratic. They know neither the Bill of Rights nor the Constitution. In fact as I write this, efforts are being made on a massive scale to rewrite the Constitution and extend immunity from lawsuits to corporations on the grounds that such entities are serving as extensions of government. From the artist’s point of view, the Goliaths can often look like predators, wild and frightening in the dark.

 

In a way, we have come full circle, and the artist now returns to the early periods in art history and learns from the earliest civilization’s art, where depictions of the powerful often took the form of animals and giants endowed with powers, depicted by snakes, dragons and the sword. The early artists trembled at their own creations, fearing the image would come to life. So they created other images of “protectors,” who also looked terrifying in their rage, in the hope that good would overcome the mighty, the powerful, and the evil.

 

The paintings in this series were influenced by Oriental art, where the concepts of “protector” images, dragons and many-headed images evolved. Similarly the work reflects concepts of anthropomorphic imagery from the Greeks, Egyptians, Sumerians and Etruscans, and draws emotional power from the great intellectual and moral icons of the Byzantine and Romanesque periods of Christianity.

 

This series of paintings takes us both backward in time to the earliest images of man, and forward in time, to question our future, which disturbingly resembles that of feudal states and feudal lords in kingdoms that rise from trade across the boundaries of nations and time. Will it be possible for one single man or woman, boy or girl to make a difference in the world of the future?  If art survives, we will survive. For Art is not a dead thing. True art is filled with life and has a power of its own. It lives independently of the mind that created it and enters the inner dwelling of the viewer, the listener, or the reader with a force and power like great wings lifting the weary upward on currents of hope. We have entered an oligarchic period in our country not even imagined by the masses or by our founding fathers. As John Milton put it in his Areopagitica, “If truth and falsity grapple openly in the market place, no one watching will be able to discern which is which.” Only a few among us know.

 

The following twenty-six works constitute Yurica’s Corporate Series as of this publication. With the exception of the last eight paintings (Catalog No.s 27-34), here is one artist’s understanding and presentation of the nature, culture and consequences of corporate acts in our world today. One other point that should be emphasized: Unlike a cartoonist’s technique where the story-line comes first, the Yurica art came first—the titles came later—in some cases, the titles came years later. A last point: following the Corporate Series are some of the artist’s paintings describing her home and environment for a pleasant interlude. We hope you will enjoy the exhibit.

1. A Corporate Portrait: Ecclesiastic Entity No. 1 with Choir Boys
Oil pastel on paper
12 by 18 inches, 2002.



2. A Corporate Portrait of The Republican Party:
They Who Must Be Obeyed
Oil on Masonite
24 by 17 inches, 1966.



3. A Bush Administration Portrait:
Preemptive Strike No. 1
(The Massacre of the Innocents)
Oil pastel on paper
12 by 18 inches, 2002.



4. A Corporate Portrait: Enron the Terrible
Oil pastel and acrylic on wood panel
24 by 22 inches, 2002.



5. A Corporate Portrait: Arthur Anderson Inc. and His Family:
Consultancy, Auditing and Little Shredder
Oil pastel on paper
18 by 12 inches, 2002.



6. A Corporate Portrait: The Controlling Group Entity of a Local
Board of Education
Oil pastel on paper board
28 by 22 inches, 1972,
reworked in 2002.



7. A Corporate Portrait: The Republican Controlled Congress
Oil pastel on paper
11 by 14 inches, 2002.



8. A Corporate Portrait:
Merrill Lynch Is Indeed Bullish on America
Oil pastel on paper
12 by 18 inches, 2003.



9. A Corporate Portrait: Board Meeting No. 1
Pen, ink and oil pastel on paper
14 by 11 inches, 2002.



10. A Corporate Portrait: The Republican Women Charities:
We Got Ours, You Get Yours
Acrylic on masonite
24 by 17 inches, 1988.



11. A Corporate Portrait:
An Emerging Republican Corporate Requirement: Submission
Oil on masonite
17 by 14 inches, 1966.



12. A Republican Corporate Campaign Policy Portrait:
Ruthlessly Rip Opponents Apart
But Smile at Every Photo Op
Oil pastel on paper
11 by 14 inches, 2002.



13. A Corporate Portrait:
Teaching Americans to Row With the Corporate Flow
Graphite and oil pastel on paper
11 by 14 inches, 2002.



14. A Corporate Portrait of the Future:
Corporate National Media Headquarters
(The Only Place From Which Americans Will Get Their News)
Oil on masonite
18 by 24 inches, 2003.

15. The Carrousel
Oil on masonite
24 by 22 inches, 1966.



16. America’s Reading Room
Acrylic on masonite
24 by 20 inches, 1987.



17. The Jar Dwellers
Oil pastel and acrylic on wood panel,
24 by 26 inches, 2002.



18. A Collective Portrait:
Pension-less Elderly Workers
Oil on masonite
26 by 24 inches, 1966.



19. A Collective Portrait:
Held Without Trial Indefinitely
Oil on masonite
24 by 18 inches, 1966.



20. A Collective Portrait: The Women
Oil on Masonite
24 by 28 inches,
1982 / reworked 2002.



21. Conflict of Interest No. 1
Oil and acrylic on Masonite
24 by 22 inches,
1988, reworked in 2002.



22. Affirmative Action No. 1:
Parent/Teacher Conflicts Over Grades
Oil and acrylic on Masonite (hardboard)
24 x 20 inches,
1988, reworked in 2002.

23. A Portrait: The Whistle Blower’s Mantle
Oil on Masonite (hardboard)
30 by 24 inches, 2002.



24. A Portrait: The Watchman on the Ramparts
Oil pastel on paper
11 by 14 inches, 2002.



25. A Portrait: The Artist Observing Us Renamed:
The Artist is Watching You, Mr. Bush-Rove
Oil on canvas board
18 by 24 inches, 1962.



26. A Portrait: Epiphany in the Library
Acrylic on masonite
18 by 24 inches, 1983

27. The Artist’s House (Through a Looking Glass*)
Oil on Masonite (hardboard)
24 by 29 inches, 2002.




28. A Portrait With Still Life in the Yellow Room
(Through a Looking Glass*)
Oil on Masonite (hardboard)
24 by 29 ¾ inches, 2002.



29. A Room With Views, An Interior Journey
Oil on Masonite (hardboard)
24 by 30 inches, 1988 / reworked in 2002.




30. Sailing on Lake Whatcom
Oil and acrylic on masonite (hardboard)
20 by 30 1/8 inches,
1988/reworked in 2002.



31. Puerto de Sueños
Oil on Masonite (hardboard)
20 by 24 inches, 2001.



32. Yard Dancers No. 2
Oil and acrylic on Masonite (hardboard)
18 by 24 inches, 2002.



33. Boats on Lake Whatcom
Acrylic and oil on Birch panel
23 by 19 inches, 2002.



34. Gardening (Through a Looking Glass*)
Oil on hardboard
24 by 18 inches, 2003.

 

(*The paintings were created using a mirror, which produces reversed images
instead of the actual site or setting. The technique has been used by the artist
for over thirty years.)

Send a letter 
to the editor 
about this exhibit