Howard Kurtz, The Washington Post
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In Media Meltdown, a news reporter rendered in the powerful brush strokes of the 2000 year-old art form of sumi-e finds himself in the center of a whirling vortex of media power. His body flies diagonally across the poster as he is drawn feet first into the falling television set. Ironically, the reporter, newsmaker and creator of images is himself transmogrified into a melting swirling image. This transitional point in the painting where his feet meet the TV set underscores the ambiguity and complex relationship between those who shape media images, and the images themselves. Who is shaping whom? The reporter's tie whips in the air and the microphone slips just beyond his grasp. They give a sense of dynamic motion and suggest things have slipped beyond his control. Is the reporter being sucked into the media machine, OR is he like an uncontrollable force that has been released in the media ether like a genie one wishes they could stuff back into the bottle? The TV set has become a nightmarish Pandora's box.
