Shock and Awe 2008

Richard Hamilton gave us this cowboy Tony Blair in Shock and Awe; it's all in how he applies the colours that gets me thinking about the process of art-making itself. The image has such a glossy surface, but it’s also strangely flat, like a digital print, all sleek surfaces and hidden depths. It’s got that Texan rouge sunset in the background, but you can also see what is happening, the hand of the artist, in the details of the cowboy shirt. The way the light catches the folds in the fabric makes it look real, like you could reach out and touch it. Looking at it now, I am reminded of Jeff Koons’s later works. There's something about the slickness of the surface, the way it reflects the light, that feels similar. But where Koons is all about surface and spectacle, Hamilton seems to be inviting us to look a little deeper, to question the images that bombard us every day.