Phoebe Fuller

Artist statement

Political art is cheap.

Or at least that¡¯s what I was told by an art professor of mine in January 2025.

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My art has always been political, mainly exhibiting pro-feminist and anti-capitalist views. My reason for creating art regarding these topics is that they are forefront in my personal life as an AFAB, lower-class person living in the West. They are depictions of my lack of privilege in these areas of life, and I became very ashamed of my art after being told that political art is cheap.

I stopped creating for a while, and it took time to become comfortable creating art again and to stop viewing my passion as ¡°cheap.¡± Although my creativity was diminished and my ego was hurt, the time I didn¡¯t spend making political art was instead spent becoming angry about political atrocities that don¡¯t directly affect me. This, combined with a newfound adoration for screen printing, is what led me to begin creating political art once again.

The process began with a reflection on why I exclusively made art in defiance of constructs that I am victimized by in my life. One of the most prevalent atrocities in the media at the moment is Israel¡¯s genocide of Palestinian people. I realized I wasn¡¯t as angry about this atrocity because I am able to view a genocide via the safety of a screen. I was actively taking this safety for granted, as many of us do; thus I decided to use this fact to benefit the Palestinian victims. I would make a series of screen prints, sell them, and donate the money to the Palestinian Children¡¯s Relief Fund. A plan was set into motion.

I have made a series of screen prints taking physical things and metaphysical concepts that we, as viewers of this genocide, take for granted. From food and water to comfort and autonomy, each print represents what has been stripped from Palestinians via terror and murder. The irony of this project is that I am actively taking art, a luxury that Israel has taken from Palestinians, for granted.

I am angry. I want others to be angry. Most of the time, it¡¯s much easier to be angry at someone else than it is to be angry at yourself. If the people who are not angry about the ongoing genocide of Palestinian men, women, and children can recognize the irony in my project and become angry at me, I will have succeeded. Anger derives from passion, and passion is a thing that sneaks in and grabs ahold of you. I hope anger festers until it spews out in the form of this sentence:

¡°From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.¡±