Response to Machiavelli Figurative Series

Felix Varela said: "All good people fear political parties," and the enclosed work, entitled "Response to Machiavelli," explores why. Our political system is peopled by the least spiritually realized among us, those that desperately need a sense of personal power to feel as if their lives have meaning. Unfortunately, the truly moral people in our society have no such needs - and the public forum is left to become a Machiavellian scrum among the morally bereft, the vast majority of whom put their own need for self-worth above the public good.

Machiavelli proposed in his book, The Prince, that the "ends justify the means;" this series of paintings explores that premise, examining specific "energies" that rule in our public sphere, regardless of the particular name of the politician or their party attachment.

The paintings themselves are portraits of these energies, detailing such aspects of Power as the complete lack of a central "Truth" or "Principle" to public statements ("Spokesman: War is Peace"); the oxymoronic language and behavior of those who continually abuse our public trust ("Oxymoron" and "Reformer"); the absurdity of pretending to have religious or moral "principles" while caring not a whit about anything but personal power ("Resolute Leader I & II") and other issues pertaining to the lust for power.

Ultimately, the paintings offer a poignant recitation for a populace that is strangled by the pretensions and emotional immaturity of its leadership. The subtext of this study, which details a political system that is, at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, truly Machiavellian, is to call to the citizenry to judge our leaders by their actions, ignoring their words, and take back the public sphere from those least spiritually qualified to "lead" us.