Europa in America, 2024


I have a long-standing fascination with Titian's work (back in 1992 I reworked his "Bacchus and Ariadne" for the cover of Crash Test Dummies' "God Shuffled His Feet"), mostly because it's such a great example of mixing "high" (fine art painting) and "low" (lurid content). 

This piece is based on "The Rape of Europa" from the early 1560's, which depicts the goddess Europa being abducted by Zeus/Jupiter (the bull). It was commissioned by Phillip II of Spain, who kept it in a private room where he could display it for his male guests. In other words, it was highfalutin' porn - but over the centuries it transmogrified into a respected highlight of European art history.

I started making studies for this image in the late 1990's but only got it where I wanted it to go with this version. Content-wise, the major change I made was to add a "saviour" (America/Jesus) for poor pagan Europe/Europa. In the spirit of Euro-centric allegorical practices from the early Baroque, America/Jesus is presented as a white guy in pseudo First Nations clothing.