Snake Rodeo
Tucker Howard
Degree: MFA
Area: Printmaking
Tucker Howard
Thesis Statement
My work provides a critical look into the American South. These prints explore this political battlefield within America through comedic narratives that satirize ideologies of the region and play with ideas of southern stereotypes. The subjects within Snake Rodeo come from my time in the South as I pull from personal experiences to present a depiction of the area through unpleasant clarity that relies on the exaggerated, the vernacular, and the humorous.
The goal of the work is to find humor in communicating a reaction towards this region of America as I investigate local customs and mannerisms to express frustration towards the current state of the South. The work expresses those frustrations through the satirizing of dominant cultural narratives and the people that perpetuate them. My motivation is to engage with this subject matter by utilizing humor as a tool to question and disrupt.
These prints draw from the traditions of satire to present social commentary as I explore themes of masculinity, political manipulation, and rural isolation. These themes become visualized through the mediums of lithography and woodcut to continue within the tradition of utilizing the printing press as a platform in which to critique societal structures. Through this exhibition, I seek to convey a revulsion towards the terrible and the appalling, while recognizing that delivering that message requires a bit of levity.