The Emerald Queen

I revisted Ultraviolenceland, a series of paintings by Camille Rose Garcia. All the paintings in this series intend to describe recreational violence. The castles are a symbol of empire. The vampires are armies that feed on violence and destruction. The dark forest symbolizes subconscious fear while inside the city symbolizes unhappiness with the "pristine but ultraviolent world."

This particular painting screamed to me the ills of the empire. The depressed princess toys with her gems in oblivion of fear. No castle can hide violence. Regardless of beauty and peace in the empire, when built by blood, fear and violence will lurk in the subconscious. The dutiful worker extracting dead souls from life reminds me of a soldiers work: the violence an army must enact to maintain an empire.To me, it also raises the question of the rationalization of violence. Violence is rationalized to protect an empire. Those who live outside the empire live outside of the care of the empire, and therefore suffer. However, all, inside and outside the empire suffer from violence. The categorization of within and outside an empire becomes arbitrary. This painting leaves me questioning. What is a nation? What is a state? Why do we substantiate violence for this arbitrary, imaginary concept?

Non-violent struggle takes many shapes and many forms. Vampires in forests, ghouls sucking souls, and princesses in castles slitting wrists and downing pills are all images of violence that Garcia painted with the intention to evoke thoughts on the use and need of violence in this world. Most people don’t look at a painting and see non-violent struggle, but it is there. Took view more of Garcia's work visit her online gallery.