The work of cover artist Aaron Morse is characterized by a varied representational strategy of multi-figure action showing natural and manmade conflicts. Often in the context of the sublime landscape, his paintings deal with a nonspecific past using American colonial history, whaling, hunting, boxing, and more recently, twentieth-century politics as a point of departure. Although Morse’s work leads to numerous interpretations, he says that it “casts a critical eye on man’s hubris and greed of late.”
In The War Is Over series, as seen on this month’s cover, Morse depicts a propaganda moment in which the forces of peace are balanced dangerously against the ongoing chaos of war. The lion and lamb represent an idealistic, moral, pacifist force. The two animals appear beleaguered and shell-shocked—an image that retains its potency for our time.
“Flaunt: Issue 78” Flaunt, 2006
