Art: Star-Spangled Scorched Earth: Genesis Chapman’s Fire on the Mountain Continues to Burn

The American dream—what’s left of it—is often draped in red, white, and blue. It waves in the wind, stitched with aspiration, wrapped around ideals, sold in bulk at big-box stores. But what happens when those stars start to burn? What happens when the promise of prosperity gets torched in the name of profit? Enter the second part of Genesis Chapman Fire on the Mountainpiece, a work that doesn’t just depict flames—it pulls you straight into the inferno.

In today’s installment, Chapman layers his signature style of raw, urgent imagery with a symbol that’s as patriotic as it is provocative: the star. Three, to be exact, carved into the composition like gaping wounds in a burning landscape. The piece juxtaposes destruction and national identity, a statement that feels like it belongs on a protest sign as much as a gallery wall. There’s no mistaking the message—this is not just a mountain fire; this is a systemic collapse, a land gutted in the name of industry, and a nation willing to stand by as the embers rise.

Chapman’s perspective is deeply personal—he grew up on Bent Mountain, a place that now bears the scars of pipeline expansion, a corporate intrusion that treats the land like a doormat. His work isn’t just about fire; it’s about the people left to pick up the pieces after the blaze. It’s about communities sacrificed for convenience, about landscapes that will never fully recover, about the relentless push of fossil fuel companies into spaces they don’t have to live in, only destroy.

Looking at this piece, you can almost hear the crackling of the flames, the rush of wind pulling the fire skyward. But what lingers most is the question: when we carve holes into our nation, when we let greed gouge through the fabric of our land, what remains? Chapman’s Fire on the Mountain series isn’t interested in soft metaphors or delicate brushstrokes. It’s a gut punch. A demand. A reckoning.

Because when the stars burn, so does everything else.

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