Famous Artwork and the meaning behind them

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Artwork called Melancholy by Albert György in Geneva, Switzerland.

This statue was created by a grieving parent. It describes how a parent feels. “Emptiness”

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Kay WalkingStick, “New Mexico Desert” (2011), oil on wood panel, 40 x 80 x 2 in, purchased through a special gift from the Louise Ann Williams Endowment, 2013 (courtesy the National Museum of the American Indian)


WASHINGTON, DC — Kay WalkingStick has devoted herself to breaking down perceived dichotomies. At her retrospective at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), the introductory wall text describes WalkingStick as “a citizen of both the United States and the Cherokee Nation.” Her father was Native American, but she grew up in New Jersey with her Scottish-Irish mother and converted to Catholicism when she was in her 60s. WalkingStick describes herself as an artist, a mother, and a biracial woman. She says her work is part of an effort to reconcile the anger she feels toward her absentee, alcoholic father with the perception of “Indians as noble Americans.” WalkingStick’s works span abstraction and realism; her materials of choice are saponified wax mixed with acrylics and oils; and her strongest works are diptychs.


Kay WalkingStick: An American Artist is the 81-year-old, Pennsylvania-based painter’s first major retrospective. The show presents more than 75 works chronologically, grouping time periods into five major categories, beginning with “The Sensual Body” — her 1970s feminist explorations through neon colored abstract nudes —and ending with “Landscape: The Power of Native Place” — works from the 2000s that pair native designs with images of the lands that specific tribes have lost to colonization.

The works in the show vary greatly in style and substance, but WalkingStick’s mid-career output stands out as the most powerful. In the 1980s, she started making diptychs, depicting the material world on one side and what she describes as “internal spiritual comprehension” on the other. A group of works that WalkingStick created between 1989 and 1995 is particularly striking. Made in the aftermath of her husband’s sudden death, the series portrays Ithaca’s prominent gorges (WalkingStick served on the art faculty at Cornell University at the time), juxtaposed with abstract panels featuring mysterious shadows of geometric shapes representative of the artist’s grief. The group of works provides a candid view into WalkingStick’s grieving process, from the dramatic, red-and-black “The Abyss” (1989), through the blues and greens of “Letting Go from Chaos to Calm” (1990), to the pink and yellow cliffs of “Seeking the Silence, I” (1994). Although most of the works in the series are paintings, there are also a few charcoal drawings, one of which replaces the natural landscape with a beautifully somber self-portrait.

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Kay WalkingStick, “Night/ᎤᎡᎢ (Usvi)” (1991), oil, acrylic, wax, and copper on canvas, 36.25 x 72.25 x 2 in (courtesy the Montclair Art Museum, purchased with funds provided by Alberta Stout)

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Kay WalkingStick, “Me and My Neon Box” (1971), acrylic on canvas, 54 x 60 in, collection of the artist (courtesy the artist, photo by Lee Stalsworth, Fine Art through Photography, LLC)

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Banksy - No Ball Games

No Ball Games by Banksy first appeared in Los Angeles in 2006 as part of Barely Legal, one of Banksy most significant shows in the USA. Over the years since, the artwork has been reimagined and has come to include various background colours. The core of the artwork, however, features two children playing a game of catch. The young boy and girl are throwing and catching, what should be a ball, but is, in fact, a bright red sign that reads, No Ball Games. A satirical piece by Banksy which takes a pot-shot at the myriad of low-key rules and regulations that restrict society on a daily basis. Perhaps it is also cheekily encouraging children to break the rules a little! No Ball Games also appeared as a mural on Tottenham High Road; it was eventually removed and sold for charity. As a Banksy art, this piece is well-known and is regularly in demand; its relatively low edition size contributes to its desirability.

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Banksy bluntly expresses his view on politics in this piece. He takes a well known saying, crosses out the final word, and with red paint, replaces it with politics. I believe red is used because red is very vibrant, and negative. It's not an adult writing it either. It's a small girl, which inserts the belief that even our youth is beginning to realize politics is fake.

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