Roger Brown
Kissin’ Cousins, 1990
Oil on canvas
72 x 72 x 2 in
182.9 x 182.9 x 5.1 cm
182.9 x 182.9 x 5.1 cm
4876
Further images
Kissin’ Cousins is one of the most personal of Brown’s sideshow banner paintings. Rather than focusing on the peculiarities of American social and political life, this particular painting references Brown's...
Kissin’ Cousins is one of the most personal of Brown’s sideshow banner paintings. Rather than focusing on the peculiarities of American social and political life, this particular painting references Brown's long-held interest in his family tree and the history of immigration and migration through the Americas. It traces a genealogical path backwards that lays out Brown’s true-life ancestral connection to Elvis Presley, one of his distant cousins.
The images in this painting tell a story not just of Brown and Elvis, but of a family that typifies the multicultural heritage of the United States, and particularly the US South. At the top of the family tree we see what is most likely a depiction of Morning White Dove, Elvis’s great-great-great grandmother, a Cherokee woman who married a man of French descent named William Mansell.
In the faces of the other people depicted in the painting, we see references to a range of other family connections Brown and Elvis were believed to have, including individuals of Portuguese, Jewish, and African American ancestry.
The term “kissin’ cousins” refers to family members who are so close that they might be inclined to greet each other with a kiss. It was used as the title of an Elvis Presley movie that told the story of an US Air Force officer who is sent to the Great Smoky Mountains to secure a lease for a secret military base from some locals who happen to be moonshiners. When the officer arrives, he meets his distant cousin who is his perfect look-alike, except with different colored hair. Elvis also sang the main theme song to the film.
The film pokes fun at Appalachian culture and makes light of the serious issue of government overreach through eminent domain, as the Air Force attempts to manipulate seemingly ignorant moonshiners into giving away their land for next to nothing.
While rooted in something personal, Brown’s painting also broaches several serious questions, such as the white washing of the true multi-cultural ancestry of the United States, and about the use of spectacle and celebrity to draw attention away from important issues.
The images in this painting tell a story not just of Brown and Elvis, but of a family that typifies the multicultural heritage of the United States, and particularly the US South. At the top of the family tree we see what is most likely a depiction of Morning White Dove, Elvis’s great-great-great grandmother, a Cherokee woman who married a man of French descent named William Mansell.
In the faces of the other people depicted in the painting, we see references to a range of other family connections Brown and Elvis were believed to have, including individuals of Portuguese, Jewish, and African American ancestry.
The term “kissin’ cousins” refers to family members who are so close that they might be inclined to greet each other with a kiss. It was used as the title of an Elvis Presley movie that told the story of an US Air Force officer who is sent to the Great Smoky Mountains to secure a lease for a secret military base from some locals who happen to be moonshiners. When the officer arrives, he meets his distant cousin who is his perfect look-alike, except with different colored hair. Elvis also sang the main theme song to the film.
The film pokes fun at Appalachian culture and makes light of the serious issue of government overreach through eminent domain, as the Air Force attempts to manipulate seemingly ignorant moonshiners into giving away their land for next to nothing.
While rooted in something personal, Brown’s painting also broaches several serious questions, such as the white washing of the true multi-cultural ancestry of the United States, and about the use of spectacle and celebrity to draw attention away from important issues.