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Francis
Bacon painted an image of a pope gripping the arms of his
chair. I don’t really recall when I first saw this
beautiful piece, but I found it disturbing. Perhaps it’s
because the sitting pontiff looked as if he was being
electrocuted. Except I wondered, who, if anyone, really
belongs in an electric chair. Who should receive the
ultimate punishment. Who should decide, and what should the
circumstances be.
It is a
controversial issue that our country and our courts have
struggled with for years, at one point barring all
executions as cruel and unusual. Then, in 1976, the US
Supreme Court took up five cases to change its mind.
One of those Death Penalty cases was Proffitt v Florida,
428 U.S.
242 (1976).
The court allowed states like Florida have its trial judges
make the determination. With a formula that addressed
mitigating and aggravating factors judges were allowed to
calculate whether they would be sentencing someone to
death.
I envision
this Capital Punishment formula having algebraic expression
that would read something like:
7M + 8A= 0 (CU)
M = mitigating
A = aggravating
CU = cruel and unusual
 Although
the idea was to put some objectivity into the decision
making, at some point it’s almost absurd to think that we
can objectify a decision that is so laden with emotion. In
my opinion, adding the formula de-emotionalizes the death
penalty so that it can be carried out.
Bacon’s
painting was in the back of my mind as I painted this piece.
In it I portray a Death Row inmate whose time is up. He sits
in a vacuum, waiting for one of us to pull the switch.
It’s harder to do that when you see the individual face to
face, regardless of the formulas.
Naturally,
it is a fantastic painting, it is loud, brash. But then
again, there is nothing more fantastic than the death
penalty, whether by lethal injection or some other process.
I created
this painting to make us all more aware about capital
punishment, because, in the end, all of us have a firm grip
on that switch.
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