Connecting the Dots

I was disconcerted to see a Bluesky thread gushing about an unexpected US artist whose work is an obvious blend of Aboriginal dot paintings, Northwest Coast art, Mesoamerican art, and Western styles. There was only one comment on the thread about cultural appropriation, which quickly got shut down. There seem to have been others since on Bluesky, at least. Given who the artist is—Hunter Biden, son of Joe—any discussion of his work risks being derailed, but the point is his work rather than who his dad is. The issue would be the same whichever Western artist had painted it. It isn’t influence that’s the issue here; Van Gogh and Gauguin were influenced by Japanese prints, but you wouldn’t say their work looked like Japanese prints. It’s that too many Westerners will happily poach styles from other cultures. In Australia, tourist souvenirs are rife with Aboriginal imagery, even today. In the 1970s it was ashtrays with dated motifs filtered through some white graphic artist’s eyes;…