28cm X 21.5cm
copyright 2007
Nancy Worthington is a forerunner in the creation of political/social art utilizing objects derived from cast off consumerism, and her ideas are prescient. She has created social commentary artworks for over 30 years. She predicted the Jonestown massacre in her 1978 sculpture, "God is A Heavy and All is Reich With the World." In early 2001 Worthington created "36 Days", a scathing indictment of the electoral process (U.S. presidential election) in which bombs represent a foreboding premonition that Bush would take the U.S. in to war.
Her artwork drew national and international attention in February 2003, just before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when "The Crossing", a work from the 26 piece George Dubya series, courageously created from 2000-2004, was censored from the French Cultural Center in San Francisco. The incident and Dubya artwork appeared in the Sunday New York Times (full page article), Le Monde (Paris) and World of Art Magazine feature story. "The Crossing was exhibited in "Potentially Harmful: The Art of American Censorship at Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, in 2006, alongside works of Mapplethorpe, Sue Coe, Serrano, et al. Her artworks represented the U.S.A. in the 18th International Bienal in Sao Paulo. Her works are in the permanent collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., the U.S. State Department Art in Embassies Program, and private collections worldwide, with artworks exhibited in the United States, Europe, India and Japan.
Worthington places her images on a tightrope between comic absurdity and tragic consequence. She uses her art as a vehicle for arousing our awareness of situations in our society and the human condition. Her constructions/assemblages, many of which are kinetic, incorporate light and sound, range from life-sized to intimate in scale.