Once upon a time in the West, John Wayne came to epitomize the All American hero. Where at the threshold of society the heroic meant the triumph of nature over culture, you find the cowboy. Once upon a time on a football pitch, high-school players were exalted from sports stars to national heroes. The hero traverses the boundaries of sociology studies into art, film, literature, comic books, sport, politics, and the media; whilst crossing and recrossing the line between fact, folklore, history and myth. He must constantly navigate the mercurial line between ‘hero and zero’. Traditionally a liminal character, he must be seen in relation to a society and in turn acts as a metaphor for the whole society and eminent issues. By using troublesome heroic iconography, the work courts an uneasiness as it makes us aware of the space we occupy in a society. Space located between the heroic and the pathetic. The use of blatant heroic iconography, the unashamedly celebratory triumphalist ‘God bless America’ emotion, is undermined by an uneasy ‘freakshow’ sociological experiment feeling; the darker side of the heroic. By occupying a liminal space, the hero draws attention to the socially acceptable. The work has serious undertones of violence; the use of the Spectacle and the overtly masculine football players give it a veneer of testosterone-fuelled aggression, which is occasionally subverted by the use of colour and scale. The work also purports to confuse the viewer as the work fluctuates between three states: Stage, Functional space and Art object. By abstaining from making the hero visible, whilst simultaneously celebrating the heroic, the work is trying to throw its intentions into doubt. As the hero takes on many forms and spans different contexts, so too does the work, by crossing many fields including video, sculpture, installation, photography and electronics, this multi-faceted metaphor is visually articulated.

Showcomplex - Emily Anderson: Artist Statement
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