24 Hour News These paintings were made as meditations on war, specifically the war in Iraq which began in March 2003. The slow, inexorable march to war was unavoidable. The White House started to beat the drums, The Congress debated, and the media related these events in the 24 hours a day news cycle. It became a toxic diatribe full of manipulation and despair. Then, the images of torture taking place, in our names, at Abu Ghraib Prison surfaced, and sickened. The series of Paintings that comprise 24 Hour News grew out of those disclosures. The terrible arrogance of our leaders seemed dangerously absurd as they expressed terrifyingly diabolical frivolity in the face of such cruelty and destruction. When Donald Rumsfeld said, "stuff happens", I knew we were doomed to endure the "farce of arrogance" in its most devastating and destructive power. Thus, the somewhat unfathomable connection between humor, Eros and violence came into the paintings What's So Funny?. The images of the tortured and humiliated bodies from the Abu Graib prison exposed the horrifying lack of protection and sanctity for the bodies of the captured and the victims. Spine and Half a Brain express that vulnerability. The Lap paintings were an exasperated attempt to put the female point of view into the picture. The Virgin Mary's Lap, which normally holds such love and tenderness, now holds the wastes of war. With Launch the Virgin's lap turns from gory reds to celestial blue, symbolizing her removal from the carnage below.