Spirit of '92
© 1992 Ruary Allan
16" x 20"
acrylic on canvas

Acts of incredible cultural destruction were unleashed with the arrival of Europeans in "new world". The rapid commencement of ethnic cleansing puts the lie to those moral hypocrisies which we use to obscure the nightmares of history. The myths we live by are malleable. They can be used to set up resonance between the human world and realities on other scales. Or they may be used to divert our thought into false, disconnected delusions.

In this context, it seemed suspiciously ironic that the eagle, symbolizing spirit to Native America, was adopted as the pseudo-heraldic face of the American Republic. All this initiated the imagery for the painting, which was completed during the culmination of 500 years of cultural delusion, 1492 - 1992. Columbus' Santa Maria can be seen approaching across the desert sands. Fortunately, we seemed at the time to have reached a place where even mainstream America sensed that full-on hoopla around this event was distasteful. It was a half-hearted celebration.

The totemic animal pole represents creatures (and thereby peoples) of all the Americas, housed in a rainbow teepee where man endeavors to live in accord with the ways of nature. The feather balancing on the wind exemplifies the delicacy with which we must walk the Earth to maintain this harmony. The eagle, formerly the seventh animal crowning the pole, has just been consumed by its Federal counterpart, and departs as a spirit cloaked in night. A benevolent cloud-horse accompanies the oncoming storm, representing the positive energies European settlers also brought. The silhouette of the spirit-eagle in the predatory eagle's eye points to our true oneness as people.

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