The exhibition
The title translates as this is art, and the premise was an argument rather than a theme. The organisers set out to challenge how the public decides what qualifies — proposing that a work should be judged on its own merits rather than by its purpose or its setting, and that what makes something art is the artist's willingness to rethink the status quo.
What arrived was an eclectic mix of styles and mediums: abstract painting, printmaking, sculpture, conceptual work, and things made from non-art materials. Gallery B is a non-profit space run by Bethesda Urban Partnership, which has managed the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District since 1994. The show was open free to the public.
The invitation
Michael Hyman emailed Ellyn and asked her to submit. He knew the work that takes risks, and thought she would fit the show. When she wrote back describing what she had in mind, he was unambiguous.
I don't shy I welcome controversy. I like the Biden pieces. I would even be interested in buy one for my collection.
Michael Hyman, by email
Writing about the show, East City Art described her as an artist whose paintings voice stories and opinions in order to profess a dialogue, who questions established norms thoughtfully, and whose hallmarks are careful research and quiet planning. It also carried a line she has used about herself: “Ellyn's style sits on the fence between social realism and expressionism.”
Four works
Trick or Treat (with Uncle Joe)
When she posted the painting in 2023, Ellyn set out what it was about:
- Candy colored fentanyl is coming across the border, increasing the danger to an already fatal problem in our country.
- Joe Biden can be a bit creepy and ‘handsy’.
- This is called political satire. I’ve been doing it for 20 years.
(Rococo) Mood Swing with Black Cohosh
Fragonard's The Swing, restaged. A grey-haired woman in jeans and a blue T-shirt flies out over a dark green woodland, one red sneaker already off her foot and airborne, a red folded fan open in her hand, mouth wide. Two robed figures work the ropes behind her, one of them haloed. A classical statue sits on its plinth at the left, and spikes of white black cohosh flower in the undergrowth.
W.E.B. Du Bois
A profile cut in black and white — high collar, beard, the head turned to the right — printed onto bristol and then surrounded by hand-painted work: gold flowers with red centres, dark trailing vines, a pale ground worked in grey and cream. The only piece in her group that began as a carved block rather than a brush.
Great Expectations
Painted directly onto the red cloth boards of a hardback Dickens — the spine still reads Great Expectations · Charles Dickens in gold, with a small gilt sailing ship at its foot. On the front, Joe Biden in a navy suit and red striped tie, gold leaf haloed behind his head like a saint in an altarpiece, and the expression of a man who has lost the thread. The title was already there. The painting only had to agree with it.
On satire
I've been painting about politics for 20+ years. I've lambasted both sides of US politics and world issues along the way. Things are very different now. Taking a stance on anything tends to make 50% of the country mad and they are very vocal about it. It's like somehow by criticizing Biden, it makes me pro-Republican (or pro-Trump). Not true. I'm firmly an independent moderate — frustrated with most things both sides do in this time in which we are living.
Isn't it enough that Biden's sniffing, touching and creepy weird behavior is wrong and deserves to be commented on or made fun of? There are shades of bad. Comedy finds a string and pulls on it. What happened to the good old days of political satire?
The response
Posted online, the painting drew the argument it was asking for. One commenter found it “a bit crude.” Another asked, directly, whether Ellyn meant to accuse the President of pushing fentanyl and of being a predator, and asked her to explain.
She explained. The first, she wrote, was about the volume of fentanyl allowed across the southern border and the danger it added to an already fatal problem. The second was about a pattern of public behaviour with children — sniffing, whispering, touching — that is documented on video and had been for years.
To the commenter who thought it crude, and who replied that there is a time and a place for all things, she answered:
And art is always the place to do/say things.
Dana Ellyn
He wrote back: “Yes you right. I appreciate what you do.” The other commenter thanked her for the explanation. Both exchanges are, in their way, the argument the exhibition was named for.
The reception
