Jolly Good Fellow

The prints created by Aaron S. Coleman at Atelier le Grand Village in the summer of 2017 waste no time in their violent and abrupt compositions. Arduously rendered icons that harken back to classical depictions of religious morality coupled with the potent, aggressive colour combinations of comic books and pop culture advertisements allude to classic hero/ villain dynamics. This pairing exposes cultural atrocities and the devices put in place to distract us from them. The additive and reductive processes with which the work is created reflects the calculated construction of legislative policies and cultural narratives that give way to selective marginalization. Coleman’s powerful, chaotic environments compel the viewer to question widespread complicity in the perpetuation of systemic, cultural imperialism, institutionalized violence and the radicalization of spirituality.