Capitol d'etat

Ray Mack (she/her): Images for a New Conversation
9/11
On September 10, 2001, I was in the US Capitol building with two of my best friends, Jessica and Sunny. Jess was the scheduler for the then Speaker of the House, disgraced pedophile Denny Hastert. Sun, along with my little dog, was my partner on a cross country road trip we had kicked off 2 weeks earlier from Chicago. It was supposed to be our last day in DC as we planned to leave early the next morning to head South. Instead, 24 hours later we all were together on the roof of Jessica’s apartment building watching the smoke rise from the Pentagon after her harrowing sprint from the Capitol Building after witnessing a plane crash-land into the Pentagon from her office window. 24 hours after that, Sun and I, with my little white dog, were at a deserted campsite in Norfolk Virginia watching an aircraft carrier deploy at dusk with its legion of boats, planes, helicopters and American soldiers. The beginning of the longest war.
Turkish Military coup Attempt
On a hot sweaty night in July of 2016, I was almost 8 months pregnant, getting ready for bed in my Taksim Square apartment in Istanbul when a coup attempt began to unfold. After a sleepless night of sonic booms and gunfire I went to the pool the following day with my dear friend Işıl Eğrikavuk. Due to the stress of that night, my little baby didn’t gain another single ounce and was born healthy but weighing just over 2kg five and a half weeks later.
Both of these events changed the course of my life in countless ways and still are. And not just mine, millions and millions more.

Accountable Uncle Sam, 2020 © Ray Mack Watercolor, ink & colored pencil

Capitol d'etat
Last night I lay in bed exhausted as the first news trickles in...the US Capitol building has been breached. A siege is underway… How could this happen? In a state of wired fatigue, I scrolled - footage of an armed, white (male) mob, smashing out windows, chasing a lone black security guard, rioting. I texted Jessica. I texted Sun. My heart ached for the many brave public servants who were running for their lives and for their families who were no doubt terrified. I gave into sleep and when I finally closed my eyes I saw this painting, Accountable Uncle Sam by Ray Mack (she/her).

Every day for 3 weeks I have looked at this painting. It seems like everyday it has become more important, but it has never meant more than it does today, January 6th, 2021, the day of the US Capitol insurrection. Mack has a knack for making work that almost immediately becomes a standard-bearer for the moment and this is true again, today. It only makes sense that I turn to the work of a woman in this moment, of a dear friend as I have before. The look of contrition on Uncle Sam's face is so out of character that it takes a moment to process the image. Her Uncle Sam carries the weight of introspection, albeit imagined, and 200+ years of cultural recognition and trauma.
Mack subverts the iconic symbol. In her rendition, the tired, watery eyes of our nation’s uncle seem to be haunted by his own legacy. After more than a century of aggressively waving his unwashed hand in your face, Mack’s Uncle Sam doubts himself, if even for a moment, and brings his hand to his chest. Suddenly, after today, his expression becomes a real possibility, not just an aspiration. Because terror changes people, if you want it to or not.

Study of a woman reading the news, 2020

Watercolor, ink, colored pencil & googly eyes on paper. © Ray Mack

Images for this new conversation: Get your fingers out of my face. 

More of her work at whoisraymack.com

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