Chargers Curator Wanker comments on The Surreal McCoy’s latest work

Wanker: “In a word, heartbreaking. McCoy has at long last ventured into the realm of self-portraiture here, but it’s hardly an occasion for celebration. This is the work of a man who feels he’s coming apart at the seams, that all his dreams have become twisted and rotten — note the putrid shade of green for the flesh, together with the terrifying arrangement of limbs. McCoy gazes out from the canvas, his mouth gaping with a silent scream of frustration that, for purity of expression, rivals Edvard Munch’s famously anguished cry. His outstretched hand is empty, signifying his loss of possible solutions for the Chargers’ woes: where a clipboard should be, the fingers grip only empty air.

"Small wonder, then, that this hand is largely obscured by the gnarled paw that readies to pass the football. Quarterback Philip Rivers has long been looked to as the team’s savior when all seems lost; a wizard of the short-pass game who seems like just the guy you would want to give four chances to score from two yards out. But here, Rivers is on the ground — or at least, his head is, driven there by repeated hits and multiple interceptions. Meanwhile, the mighty leg of running back Melvin Gordon splays crazily to the side, longing to do what it has done so many times this season: burst through the line of scrimmage and into the end zone. But McCoy holds it high off the ground, where it can only flail helplessly and wonder at the absurdity of its situation. The situation is truly topsy-turvy: heels over head, as it were.

“McCoy seems to realize that his ass is on the line, that his very job as coach is threatened by the grotesque gameplay signified by this body. And so he does not shy away from depicting his ass, and even goes so far as to portray kicker Josh Lambo’s foot emerging from it. Perhaps it’s a reference to Lambo’s missed field goal against the Broncos: when you can’t count on a 45-yard field goal… Or maybe it’s a sad joke: the kicker’s foot kicking the head coach’s butt. Either way, it’s painful.

“There are some additional intriguing elements: the box, which perhaps represents McCoy’s somewhat unimaginative play-calling; and the beans, which may be piled into the sort of hill that the Chargers’ season does not seem like it is destined to amount to. But mostly, this is just a straight representation of one man’s agony.”