This piece, Wrong Answer will be in the Small Works show at the Maxwell Alexander Gallery in Culver City, CA next month. I took a poll on Facebook asking which of the two titles I had narrowed it down to (Wrong Answer, or Bad Company) fit best, and Wrong Answer won by a landslide.
Although a few comments accused me of stereo-typing this decidedly fictitious painting, I must point out that there were indeed Mexican bandoleros and revolutionaries roaming the southwest who looked just like this back in the day...
From about 1910 to 1920 revolts and raids were common throughout Mexico, incited by growing distrust and dissatisfaction with then president, Porfirio Diaz. It eventually ended with the ousting of Diaz, and deaths of some of the key members of the revolution, including Pascual Orozco, Emiliano Zapata & Pancho Villa who looked much like the character in my painting.
Even women fighters were not uncommon, like Margarita Neri who brandishing a machete, led a force of over 1,000 vowing to decapitate Diaz who eventually fled to France and died there in exile one hundred years ago.
