Artworks

HEY JOE, WHERE YOU GOING WITH THAT GUN IN YOUR HAND (2014)

Artist Commentary | Ashleigh Sumner April 2023

“Hey Joe, where you goin' with that gun in your hand?
Hey Joe, I said, where you goin' with that gun in your hand? Oh I'm goin' down to shoot my old lady
You know I caught her messin' 'round with another man, yeah I'm goin' down to shoot my old lady
You know I caught her messin' 'round with another man
Huh, and that ain't too cool
Hey Joe, I heard you shot your mama down
You shot her down now
Hey Joe, I heard you shot your lady down
Shot her down in the ground, yeah
Yeah”

- Selected lyrics from “HEY JOE” by Jimi Hendrix, 1967

This piece is partially inspired by the iconic 1967 anthem by Jimi Hendrix, Hey Joe. There is no disputing the track is considered a rock and roll classic. The song was recorded as part of Hendrix’s debut album, Are You Experienced. While Are You Experienced is widely considered one of the greatest albums of our time, I’ve always found the lyrics to Hey Joe chilling. It’s a confession of a man planning to shoot his wife in a lyrical tale of domestic violence.

Using the lyrics to Hendrix’s classic song as the foundation of this work, I created the piece on the heels of the 2014 University of Santa Barbara mass shooting. The perpetrator was a young man intent on targeting a group of sorority women in an act of revenge for his perceived rejection by them. In a recorded manifesto he stated, “I take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you. You will finally see that I am, in truth, the superior one. The Alpha Male.” He killed six people.

By 2023, this work has found an even deeper and evolving resonance. With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the mass targeting of women has taken place at the highest judicial levels in the United States of America. With the continued erosion and all-out assault on a woman’s basic human right to make decisions regarding the self-governance of her own body, this piece is more relevant today than it was a decade ago. Today, women are squarely positioned in the crosshairs of the Nation’s highest courts and State legislatures.

The lyrics of Hey Joe are graffitied with spray paint and oil stick throughout the background of the painting. From 2013 - 2014, I created a series of work using a white, albino stag. In both Native American and Japanese cultures, the albino stag is symbolic of a prophecy that a great shift is under way. My hope is that society will shift in a humanitarian direction in regards to gender equity. My fear is the violent lyrics of Jimi Hendrix’s Hey Joe will continue to be just as relevant for women in the future as it was in 1967.