Calvin Whitehurst

"One Larger Entity"

Found paper images on 1/4" plywood.

Sizes variable

by Calvin Whitehurst

Paul of Tarus' Chromosomes

Found paper images

7" by 5.25"

Calvin Whitehurst

(CNN) -- Former President George W. Bush is proving to be a bona fide painter, gifting big time celebrities with portraits, and now garnering mixed praise -- just like real artists! -- from critics like New York Magazine's Jerry Saltz.

Art criticism can go so much farther than this and it already has in the past.  How can one of the most popular art critics, Jerry Saltz, be so lazy?  If you write art criticism can't you look beyond your computer screen?  Who cares if a shitty ex-president makes even shittier paintings.  There are plenty of REAL artists working their asses off out there just to get ignored because a retired president decided to become a Sunday painter.  Saltz's assumptions about Bush's work are shallow and unresearched.  He also never explains why we should care that Bush paints either, he just says "I like it" and "The New York art community would embrace him." without any type of rationale.  Why Jerry, why would anyone give half a shit about dogs or celebrity portraits by someone that happened to used to be president? I suppose you might as well just go to a thrift store and find paintings by anonymous artists and wonder about their origins too.  You could pretend like they're really important too because its so much easier to analyze artwork by people that you'll never meet than to actually write about artists that take this lifestyle seriously.  A retired president doesn't care about the contemporary art world when he picks up a paint brush. I think its time you consider retirement yourself Jerry Saltz because you're wasting everybody's time here.  Essentially you've become a hobbyist art critic.

-Calvin Whitehurst

The House is Alive and Everyone's Home

7" by 5.25"

Found paper image collage

by Calvin Whitehurst