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TYLER SHANDRO SCREAMING IN FEAR? ANGER? GREED? GUILT?
 

I’ve been painting loving portraits of Tyler Shandro for almost a year now, so I wasn’t surprised when he contacted me in early October to do a live sitting for a new piece.

 

We were huddled around a table in a posh bar I’ve never been to, breathing each others’s breath, moist and warm. “Sure”, he said, “you’ve captured my six withered breasts and tattered bat wings, but I have a soft side too. I want a more demur depiction.

 

“I want your soft touch” he whispered, and furtively slid a check across the table. It was for a cool $1 million. “But Shandy, aren’t we in the midst of an unprecedented fiscal reckoning?” then we both wetly laughed and I pocketed the money while he ordered another round of Pappys.

 

On October 26th I arrived at his house, fresh faced and ready to work. I entered a home mired in chaos. A series of healthcare worker wildcat strikes had cropped up across the province, and Tyler was stalking the house room to room like the haunted heir to the Winchester fortune screaming an unending free-association tirade through a mouth foaming with M&Ms. His entire legacy was at risk.

 

“DON’T THESE FUCKING IDIOTS KNOW THAT BY STRIKING ALL THEY’RE DOING IS JEOPARDIZING THEIR FUTURE AS A WAGE SLAVE? I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND. WHY CAN’T EVERYONE JUST BE NICE TO ME? ALL I WANT TO DO IS GIVE GOVERNMENT MONEY TO PRIVATE CORPORATIONS TO UNDERPAY WORKERS AND DO A SUBPAR JOB IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKIN PANDEMIC AND ECONOMIC CRISIS.  SO WHAT IF PEOPLE DIE, IT’S NOT LIKE IT’S MY JOB TO KEEP PEOPLE HEALTHY. THAT’S THE JOB OF THE TELUS BABYLON APP.”

 

From the very moment he encountered the press, it was obvious Tyler Shandro was a boy lost and ill fitted in the skin of a man. I suppose he hoped that by losing his shit like an insolent child over a meme posted one hundred lifetimes ago (six months), he would be isolated from future criticism for fear of his non-hinged unsense. The egg faced golden boy and terminus of the Shandro political dynasty has always had difficulty understanding the notion of consequence. When healthcare workers responded to the news of 11 000 layoffs with at least 45 wildcat strikes in 33 towns and cities, Tyler Shandro responded with that potent cocktail of rage and petulance that has come to define his time as a cruel and gutless Halloween pumpkin.

 

It took his entire team of staffers, each of them pastier and morally bankrupt-er than the last, to restrain him long enough for me to capture his soft side. As he rattled and moaned in involuntary stillness the sole emotions acknowledged by the United Conservative Party passed through his elastic face in phases, fear, anger, guilt, and greed. Then, mixing and matching into hybrid states of malice previously unknown to the English language: angreed, feauilt, greeear.

 

“Gragh!” he screamed, “Shandro greeeargry!”. We all chuckled at that one, the poor confused bastard. Then he pooped his pants. Anyway, that was earlier today. He doesn’t want the painting after all, so this is YOUR CHANCE yes, YOU, and YOUR CHANCE to own a masterful depiction of Tyler Shandro and the roiling sea of loathing in which he lives. Mixed media on canvas, 24x24

Oct 26, 2020