Ronald McJackson Original illustration
Artwork Details:
- Title: Ronald McJackson
- Size: 8.5 x 11 inches
- Medium: Watercolor + copic markers on Bristol
- Style: Controversial, Contemporary, Symbolic
- Original: Signed artwork by Preston Mitchell
- Year Created: 2016
Artwork Summary:
Ronald McJackson is an original watercolor illustration by Preston Mitchell that examines identity, capitalism, and cultural consumption through deliberate visual tension. The work merges the imagery of Michael Jackson, one of the most consumed pop icons in history, with Ronald McDonald, a global symbol of corporate innocence and mass marketing. Together, they form a single figure that is familiar, unsettling, and intentionally unresolved.
The subject references corporate entertainment and pop culture mythology. The absence of a smile shifts the narrative. This figure is not performing joy. It reflects the burden of constant visibility and the pressure to entertain. The gaze is serious and introspective, suggesting the human cost behind spectacle and expectation.
Color and composition are intentional. The red hair and nose reference Ronald McDonald and signal branding, performance, and consumption. The muted flesh tones and facial expression echo Michael Jackson’s public vulnerability. Watercolor bleeds and softened edges reinforce fragility, emphasizing how identity erodes when it becomes a product.
This piece confronts themes of cultural ownership, racial expectation, celebrity, and exploitation. It questions how Black identity is shaped, packaged, and consumed by corporate systems for profit. Entertainment becomes a mask. Humanity becomes secondary.
Ronald McJackson is not parody. It is social commentary rendered with restraint and clarity. The work exists as a one-of-one original illustration, created entirely by hand, and intended for a collector drawn to contemporary art that challenges power, branding, and cultural memory.
* THIS SPECIFIC ILLUSTRATION WAS LOST IN AN APARTMENT FIRE AND WILL NEVER BE REPRODUCED. THANK YOU FOR UNDERSTANDING. -PM
