Alliance (RD-3)
from The Triumph of Romanticism
20" x 20"
acrylic on canvas
2016
Private Collection, Houston, Texas
Exhibitions
Nicole Longnecker Gallery, Houston, Texas, The Triumph of Romanticism, September 10 - October 15, 2016
Houston, Texas, Visitation, January 14, 2017

 

Alliance (RD-3) interrupts the constellation with a declaration: “I AM A MAN.” The phrase, repeated across protest signs held by a crowd of grayscale figures, is not metaphor—it is truth. A refusal to be reduced, a demand to be seen. The image references the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike, but here it transcends history. It becomes a mirror held to the viewer—a reality that can be acknowledged or ignored.


The red star in the upper corner marks the chromatic zone of the work—red as urgency, bloodline, and ideological heat. The numeral “3” in the bottom corner situates the piece within the Alliance constellation, signaling its position in a sequence of chosen alignments.
Unlike the cinematic kiss of Alliance (BL-1) or the marketed joy of Alliance (GR-2), Alliance ( RD-3) offers no fantasy. It presents reality—stylized, yes, but unflinching. And yet, the image is curated. The grayscale palette, the uniform signs, the composed framing—all suggest that even truth, when aestheticized, risks becoming spectacle.


In the context of The Triumph of Romanticism, Alliance ( RD-3) reveals the tension between reality and representation. It is the one canvas in the constellation that refuses illusion. It offers presence.


Alliance (RD-3) is the truth we can choose to ignore. A visual pledge to dignity, staged in the heat of red.