Author: jpmarcelo_wp

Bay Area artist takes journalist’s approach to painting

John Paul Marcelo looked up at a sniper rifle trained on his canvas. It was around 1999, in Chicago’s Near North Side, and Marcelo was standing in front of a brick apartment building, one of the many in Cabrini-Green, a public housing project made infamous as a poster child for government neglect, poverty and rampant gang violence. — READ MORE

by Erin Baldassari, East Bay Times

What was going on, Mr. Marcelo?

I just wanted to come to New Orleans for a few days to help as a volunteer. That was six weeks ago. I still don’t want to go back to San Francisco to continue painting beachland idylls as before – not after everything I’ve seen here. In the poor neighborhoods, such as the Lower Ninth Ward, bodies are still recovered half a year after the hurricane ‘Katrina’, a school bus collided with a barge is nothing special here. Every day I look for one or two motifs, I want to demonstrate the failure of our government with my pictures. I can’t sell anything here, no one has money for a work of art and certainly not for a picture that reminds of everyday horror. — SEE ORIGINAL ARTICLE