The 4th of May, Bring the War Home

About The 4th of May, Bring the War Home

This contemporary figurative oil painting explores themes of politics and culture.

Deborah Root’s dynamic colourful compositions tell an intimate story about her experience during socially relevant and politically important moments in time.
“This image is a visual memoir of the very different social and political climate of times past. An iconic image of the Kent State shootings is foregrounded, with a scene from a U.S. demonstration to one side and a schematic image from an antiwar poster to the other. The fire just off center refers to the townhouse accidentally blown up by Weather Underground in NYC in 1970.
I was a high school student in these times, and Vietnam War protests went hand in hand with more pleasurable pursuits, like playing guitar in the park. But Vietnam was always there, touching our lives in different ways, as was the shock that, as Crosby, Still, Nash and Young sang, "soldiers are gunning us down." Did our parents wish us dead? Some of us felt so.
The composition uses fragmentary and entwined images to express this disorientation, which at times became chaotic.” Deborah Root

Deborah Root is a painter, writer, lecturer and professor. She has written extensively on the relationship between visual arts and cultural politics. Root was born in Seattle and attended university in Canada before settling here.

She acquired both her BA and MA in Archeology and Anthropology at Canadian universities and finally a PH.D. from the Graduate Program in Social and Political Thought at York University. Her 1996 book entitled ‘Cannibal Culture’ was included in a 2017 Buzzfeed list (digital media company) of the 16 books to read to understand white supremacy in the United States.
She has taught at several Canadian universities and has sat on the boards of a number of Toronto-based art and political magazines. Deborah Root has exhibited her paintings in both solo and group shows in Canada, the U.S. and Europe since 2017.