Douglas’ work
(Welcome to the Gulf, Acrylic and Mixed Media. 6 panels, fused into three. )

“Looking at a map can give you all sorts of feelings.” Douglas Brewster’s Welcome to the Gulf is a fascinating narrative of the artist’s own personal history, meteorological disturbances, and a sociological map of the Southern United States. Composed and adjusted over the span of four years (2004-2008) this work addresses the Gulf Dead Zone, Hurricanes Ivan, Katrina, and Rita, and the artist’s own personal histories. As time went by, the painting has grown in size until it reached the proportions we see today.

Brewster began the painting before Hurricane Ivan in 2004. He originally wanted to explore, though his work, the Gulf Dead Zone. Off the coast of Louisiana, there exists an area about the size of New Jersey where no plant or animal can survive. This dead zone has been created by a combination of runoff from Midwestern agro-business and off shore oil platforms. In the middle of creating the work, Hurricane Ivan threatened Louisiana and Brewster evacuated from his Covington home. His journal took the direction that many would take over the years in response to Ivan, Katrina, Rita, and Gustav. The journey northward to find shelter (for Brewster, his arrow dotted journey to Memphis -DUCKS, RIBS, ELVIS- and Little Rock -home of Wal-Mart and Chicken farms) and the eventual return home. Text gives the artist’s commentary, ranging from motels with dirty sheets to why people still cling to the design of confederate flags -the flags, he reminds us, of losers.

After Ivan, Brewster decided to expand his painting. He literally cut out the area of the dead zone and focused on creating a larger map of the south. As a distant cousin of Robert E. Lee, Brewster is particularly concerned that many still need to move on from Guns, Jesus, and the Confederacy. Brewster fills the maps with all sorts of images and locations. The flags of each state, some of which show their Confederate origins, economic factors (including the intensive agriculture which causes the dead zone). Within the gulf itself, an oil freighter becomes a Brechtian Black Freighter with a toxic albatross hung around its neck.

Maps can show topographical information. Maps can show political information. Maps can show places where meaning and memory intersect. Brewster’s painting reveals all of these things. Collating his symbols, memories, geographies, and political comentaries, Brewster shows us what he sees when he looks at a map. This is an image which clearly identifies the roots of many of our problems. Brewster himself, however is cautiously optimistic about the future of the map and the world it represents. His own family legacy is proof that history can be re-worked, adjusted, re-presented in ways that learn from their own trajectories.

Sergio Lobo-Navia.