Ashford University ART 515 Research Paper - Introduction, Thesis, Visual Analysis

In this essay, I will explore how the weight and substance in Martinez’s Thing and Deception is portrayed in a religious and non-religious sense. By understanding the nature of reality and trying to find context in Mar ...

In this essay, I will explore how the weight and substance in Martinez’s Thing and Deception is portrayed in a religious and non-religious sense. By understanding the nature of reality and trying to find context in Martinez’s work, a lot of questions, like how the resurrection of Jesus can correlate to the broken pieces of the Easter bunny in his painting, should be asked to gain a better sense of the religious and non-religious take on this piece of art (Mary, n.d.). Siedell mentions the blending of religion and art, and the painting Things and Deception can be thought of as a catalyst blending of the two. With Martinez being one a more risqué contemporary artist of this time, we have him to thank for this painting to help those on both spectrums of art and region ask the questions that need to be ask, which will be discussed throughout this paper (Siedell, 2008). Martinez’s Things and Deception is an interesting piece of artwork. The piece can bring about a lot of question in both the religious and non-religious sense. From a non-religious point of view, one may ask the question, why is the bunny broken and covered, then proceed to come up with answers. One answer I thought of would be that the weight of the word has broken the bunny down, and through the many struggles, though hidden, the bunny has put itself back together to be strong for society. This is an expected trend in the adult world, speaking from experience, where one has to hear of their shortcomings but still put on a smile and hide their paint from the world and still show up every day to work (Siedell, 2006). Coming from a more religious viewpoint, one could think of the Easter bunny as Jesus breaking out of its human shell, during the resurrection, and putting the broken pieces (sins) back together as a reminder that though humans have sinned against Him, Jesus has died for them and has prayed to his father to forgive them. The veil covers the broken pieces as the blood of Christ for protection (Siedell, 2006).