Whistling Dixie

“Most mandalas have an intuitive, irrational character and, through their symbolical content, exert a retroactive influence on the unconscious. They therefore possess a “magical” significance, like icons, whose possible efficacy was never consciously felt by the patient.” –Carl Jung

The Whistling Dixie series from 2015 looks at the shadow aspect of universal emblems, such as the Mandala.  In standard paper targets the circular and quaternary aspects of symbolic wholeness become mundane exercises in improving one’s aim with firearms. These mixed media targets explicitly explore racist remarks I experienced directly, both as the receiver of hate speech, and as a fly on the wall. The inherent violence of the actual bullet holes in each target is echoed by the words emblazoned across these shadow archetypes.