Black Rhino was painted for a show in LA for Kim Light’s Lightbox gallery. It was the beginning if the campaign and debates for Barack Obama vs. John McCain, and the show was entitled Good Leaders, Endangered Species, Ships at Sea (a “chapter” of the über My American Dream meta-narrative). I felt we needed good leaders, because they were like an endangered species, in a world that was a ship at sea…

I had in the show cultural and civil rights leaders like MLK and his family, along with maritime pictures of ships that survived torrid storms, and pictures like this, of endangered species. I thought that no matter what your politics, that even conservatives could agree that we need these precious animals to survive the generations, and therefore care for our planet, global warming, clean air, and water and, with that, caring for all the peoples together on this great earth.

This feels like a mother rhino to me, her great elephantine-like skin is broken and bruised, yet she keeps clamoring on, never giving up the fight, her horn morphing into a foreshortened abstraction, like a magical pachyderm unicorn, stridently exalted for survival, no matter what the cost.