Anyone familiar with American Westerns will find the depictions in the proposed painting, Tony James, oddly familiar. In this striking image the subject is silhouetted by sunlight that streams into the mouth of a dark tunnel, unmistakably quoting the final scene of The Searchers, but instead of seeing John Wayne’s melancholic,aging, civil war veteran we are met with a young soldier who has just returned from duty in Iraq. Stationed at Fort Carson, this young soldier reminds us of the rich military and Western history in Colorado.
