America For Sale-
What Is At Steak. By: Miguel Hernández
Category: Painting • Technique: Acrylic on canvas • Format: 48"x80" • Year: 2009

In this piece I bring meat to the table, as it relates to the current suffering of the United States. In the west we can connect flesh to the inheritance of original sin: the dichotomy of good and evil. This biblical reference is a basis for a large portion of the religious ideologies that are found across the U.S. and within the United States Constitution. Additionally, what is necessary to acknowledge is the divisive nature of greed and waste. Whatever the cause, this abuse creates the abyss of war, blood, and pain and suffering. The depiction of the U.S. as the wealthiest and most powerful nation has come into question and we are facing deterioration.

Represented here is a hunger, not as a strictly nutritional lack, but as a people suffering under the poor direction of its leaders. It is also a statement about the meat that has been desired by other nations for centuries; by neighbors who chew off and devour our meat as the one to hunger for. Our meat, however, is being sold cheaper than before.

A piece of this meat may temporarily satisfy hunger but it is simultaneously corroding us. We must be careful, because this is the same meat that defines us. Our once desirable meat is becoming less and less so, representing the loss of respect and admiration for a country once held in higher esteem. If the meat was better handled, without such toxicity and improper and immoral management, it would satiate and nourish instead of putrefy.

Every inhabitant of the United States receives the consequences of the mismanagement of funds. The entire country is suffering from open wounds. When greed and waste no longer motivate the decisions of our leaders, these wounds will be able to heal.



Writing Credit: Kasey W Lockwood