The Art of Satire

There is art to be found in New Brunswick, especially this week, as local artist Robert Mermet holds the spotlight in a downtown gallery. The Class of 2007 Mason Gross School of the Arts alum has his first solo exhibition at the Alfa Art Gallery. The exhibition, titled God Bless, is a way of saying "screw you" to American politics and religion.
The exhibition features various paintings that satirize the country's dismal political situation and reapplies consumer messages and pop culture symbols. Although the irony in some of Mermet's art can be either a pick-me-up or a downer, his sculpture of LSD's chemical structure is a definite mood-lightener.
Mermet was educated in film and video, but the multi-talented artist said he wanted God Bless to show everyone that he is a painter as well. Inside Beat met up with the man behind the "Dancing Hitler" painting and got the scoop on his inspirations and intentions. What follows are some of Mermet's key pieces and his personal commentary about them.

Image 1
"Nixon" (2009)
Robert Mermet: This is one of my more successful paintings, and I've been using it to market the show. It can be read a number of ways: "V" for victory, the symbol for peace, and in Germany, it means "f--- you." And the tie-dye is kind of acting as the crown of thorns, like he's being crucified by the '60s era.

Image 2
"Buy a Boat" (2008)
RM: Boats are so unnecessary, but conservatives, yuppies and the like tend to buy boats and will just have them but never really use them. It's just an elitist, nonsensical thing to have. As opposed to driving, you could have a boat, which could take you nowhere.

Image 3
"Skull" (2009)
RM: It's not supposed to look like a skull. The point is that it's kind of symmetrical like a face would be. People crave symmetry, but in reality nothing is really symmetrical.

Image 4
"Target" (2010)
RM: This is referencing Jasper Johns who did the original target. Then Target stole the symbol in what I'm assuming was in their own way an homage to Johns, and I wanted to reclaim it for the art world. Actually if you look really closely, you can see that I made the lines in the same way Jasper would make his target. I could have just as easily printed something and made a stencil, but I figured the process was important.