A painted scene depicts a blue and red pickup truck with an American flag hood boasting oversized wheels, stuck in muddy water with its front end tilted downward. Spectators gather in the background near cemetery headstones and bare trees under a cloudy sky, watching the vehicle strain against the mud and its own weight.

Baby We Were Born To Run

Davin Watne

9/11/2026 – 10/17/2026

In this new exhibition, Baby We Were Born To Run, Davin Watne presents a body of paintings and prints exploring metaphor and allegory within the American experience. These works build humorous narratives that challenge prevailing media depictions of nationalism, toxic masculinity, and culture war politics. By intersecting these themes with concepts of folk physics, Watne exposes the fragile underbelly of male vulnerability.

Watne utilizes "folk physics" as a conceptual lens to examine the unseen forces structuring American life. Just as this phenomenon relies on an intuitive, unscientific understanding of cause and effect, social constructs like nationalism and masculinity are often treated as immutable laws of nature rather than fragile, human-made systems. By rendering scenes of monster trucks violently confronting their mechanical limits and gravitational strain, Watne mirrors the psychological weight and volatile friction inherent in contemporary culture wars.

 

A painted scene depicts a blue and red pickup truck with an American flag hood boasting oversized wheels, stuck in muddy water with its front end tilted downward. Spectators gather in the background near cemetery headstones and bare trees under a cloudy sky, watching the vehicle strain against the mud and its own weight.

More by Davin Watne (View All)