From Arts Fort Worth:

“Climate Change is catastrophically damaging communities and the environment. Women’s Rights and Trasngender Rights continue to be a source of contention on the national stage. Racism and religious bigotry runs rampant in the face of an increasingly diverse United States. Propaganda has now taken the form of disinformation in the digital age, leading to a division in public health policies over such issues as masks mandates. Furthermore, Militarism and notorious paramilitary groups are on the rise as we see violence erupt at home and abroad. The struggles of the working class continue under the capitalist economic system. Looking at the current American political landscape, polarization is at an all-time high.

Anton Franz Hoeger addresses these very problems engulfing American society through his artwork, however, with an emphasis on contemporary White America, specifically Middle America. The artworks presented in this exhibition are meant to capture in part, the climate of Middle America’s socio-political atmosphere by providing compelling paintings gathered from Hoeger’s lifetime body of work. These works can also be seen to reference historical and present characteristics of Middle America like that of the continued reliance on railroad, animal husbandry, agricultural, and manufacturing industries. Middle America should not be seen as a monolithic identity. The selected paintings do not attempt to encapsulate the entire demographic of a loosely defined group of people, but rather to hint at a subject matter that is imbued with symbolism and esoteric imagery, often alluding to perceived Middle American conservative values, ideology, religion, and culture.”