In the title Over Yonder (for Woody Guthrie) (2007), American artist Matt Blackwell references both a colloquial phrase common in the American South and the song “Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key” by the musician Woody Guthrie. In his work, Blackwell is similarly inspired by other American singer/songwriters including Bob Dylan, John Prine and Lucinda Williams, by the crowded scenes of painters James Ensor and Max Beckmann, as well as figurative painting popular in the California Bay Area. Blackwell’s own improvised and complex narratives feature carnivalesque figures with a political undercurrent, referencing a history of Americana and folk art. In Over Yonder… a manned oil rig hung with nooses spouts crude oil over a divided landscape. On one side inhabits George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and other suited figures fighting amongst a field of skulls while sliding into a chasm at the painting’s center. On the other side, a long- limbed donkey walks through an idyllic landscape holding Guthrie’s guitar (inscribed "this machine kills fascists!”). The work was painted during George W. Bush’s second term as President of the United States, when the administration's pursuit of oil interests led to significant disturbance at home and abroad.