Carlson Hatton

Within this work a desperate or perhaps enlightened figure makes his way through a mystical forest. I borrowed the tittle from Stuart Ewen’s Seminal book on advertisings roots in a newly industrialized America, “Captains of Consciousness”. Like many of my works I’m utilizing the language and iconography common to religious recruitment pamphlets and am combining it with invented collateral for free love (and your mind) psych-pop, SoCal car culture. By this point in time there is a great deal of cross over between the two seemingly disparate directions.
The seductiveness of advertising, the weight of history, the sadness of our social hierarchical structures become absurd psychedelic groupings of re-contextualized form.
This work quickly took on a clearly figurative direction that is less prevalent within many of my other paintings. To me it has a comical sadness and I wanted to keep this strong sense of recognition intact. The figure seems to conjure images of outcast veterans, street walking trannys and exotic “savages” bejewel with the pieced together waste from a more prosperous land.