Satireday

Things can get all too serious in this hyper-paced city, sometimes the only thing you can do is have a laugh about it. And, being a Saturday it only felt suitable to get my satire fix.

Social satire is not a modern invention, in fact as I discovered in more depth today, comic artists have been making fun of Britons and others (particularly the French and Germans), since at least the 17th century. From the bawdy to the grotesque and absurd, the Rude Britannia exhibition at Tate Britain was testament to the sheer variety of British comic art that has poked and prodded society over the centuries.

One of my favourite parts of the exhibition was the Politics section where caricaturist Gerald Scarfe played host to the playful interpretations of political figures such as Napoleon, Hitler, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair to name a few. He also included a section that paid tribute to his working procedures and provided insight his own caricature work. Here I sketched one of his nicely inked images of Obama in a bit of a muddle caused by the recent oil spill disaster. I've included my rough sketch below. The reason why this particular image caught my eye was the way Gerald echoes both the shape and gesture of a waterbird stuck in oil and applies it to the obama figure.