Bad Mutha Wizard 2008

Dave Macdowell made this hilarious painting, "Bad Mutha Wizard", sometime in the 20th century, and it looks like he used acrylics. There’s a lot of dark colour, which gives it such a serious, mysterious mood. But then you notice the title, and the content, and it's immediately funny. The image plays on the Wizard of Oz, but it's not just a copy. It’s like Macdowell is remixing a memory, and in his hands the original image gets a bit twisted. The big floating head in this picture, that’s Samuel L. Jackson as the Wizard, right? It’s so deadpan, with all that fire and the tiny Dorothy and Co. in the foreground, it's like a joke! I find it fascinating how he's re-worked a shared cultural image. It reminds me of Peter Saul, who always takes things and cranks them up to eleven. It’s like art is one big conversation and Macdowell is throwing in something cheeky and unexpected.