Jaclyn Conley, The Return of the Herd, 2023

The Five Seasons

“History never repeats itself, but the Kaleidoscopic combinations of the pictured present often seem to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends.” Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner, 1874.
In my paintings the photograph source becomes a space between reality and imagination with overlaps of past and present. In this set of five paintings characters of the American counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s inhabit Bruegel’s landscapes illustrating the passing of time as seasons. In both worlds individuals strive to organize themselves and to coexist within a set of ideals all under the dominating whims of greater natures. The figures, sometimes dwarfed by their surroundings and other times stretching the scale of their influence reflect our own uncertainty of our human force onto, and as part of, our landscape.

Top left photo titled “Vietnam-Demo-Anti-War-Moratorium Day”, captioned: “Anti-war demonstrators carry a coffin, on November 19, 1969 in Washington DC, to protest against the continuing war in Vietnam. Millions of Americans took part in peace initiatives across the United States, in a second Moratorium Day”. (Photo by CONSOLIDATED NEWS PICTURES / AFP).

Middle left photo by Gene Anthony, captioned: “First counterculture celebration of the summer solstice, June 21, 1967.” The Digger Archive.

Photo by Peter Simon captioned: “Jude and Pace, silhouetted by the sea. Behean Beach, Martha’s Vineyard Mass., August 1970.”

Photo by Ellis Herwig/The Bostom Globe titled “Anti-War Demonstration in Boston” and captioned: “Students playing musical instruments march to Bostom Common for the Moratorium Day rally, October 15, 1969.”

Painting 'The Return of the Herd' by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, oil on panel, 1565.

Jaclyn Conley Canada, b. 1979

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Jaclyn Conley Canada, b. 1979