PROVO, Utah—In a “politically correct” field, conservative artists tend to see themselves as creative outcasts and rebels.
Jon McNaughton said he was always at odds with his left-leaning art teachers and administrators in Utah over the religious content in his paintings.
McNaughton believed that art was a divine reflection of the soul. They believed in self-expression within ideological boundaries—at least it seemed to him that way.
“I’ve always been knocking heads. I can’t help it. I’m a contrarian that way,” McNaughton said.
He would say it’s just the way he rolls—like the motorcycle wheels in his latest painting in acrylic titled “MAGA Ride.”
The work in progress shows President-elect Donald Trump riding a flag-embellished machine of precious metal with former First Lady Melania Trump as his passenger. A crowd of supporters in red MAGA caps greet them at the White House.
McNaughton jokes that “it’s not an insurrection.”
“This is my way of communicating how I feel about the country,” McNaughton said. “I use a lot of imagination in my ideas and concepts. Then I try to paint them in a way that people can identify with what they’re looking at.”
McNaughton is not the only one who considers himself a conservative artist in the progressive leaning mainstream. The Imaginative Conservative, a website for conservatives, said that the art world is becoming more radical in its sensibilities and subject matter.
“This is not universally bad, by any stretch, at most points in history,” the journal wrote. “They are often the dreamers, the innovators, the explorers, in and out of the artistic realm. They thrive on creatively challenging the status quo, and the status quo often requires such a challenge.
“But, particularly in recent years, this strong tendency toward radically leftist politics has become more extreme and more dogmatic among many of the strongest voices—so much so that conservative artists, in even the broadest sense ... seem to the outside observer not to exist at all.”
McNaughton, 57, has been painting since he was young, but he only recently started using political themes in his work.
At age 14, he won the state high school art competition and later got a full scholarship to Brigham Young University Art School.
“Then I realized I was a fish out of water [at BYU],” he said. “I just decided I was going to do it my way. I didn’t care what anyone thought. I’m just going to do what I want.”
Each year, he creates six or seven paintings based on what’s happening in the country. He gets ideas from podcasts and the internet and then adds his own personal touch.
A 44-by-66-inch framed painting of Christ holding the U.S. Constitution, flanked by the Founding Fathers, is his first truly political piece, titled “One Nation Under God.”
The painting shows a cross-section of society, including a judge, soldiers, politicians, bankers, and an expectant mother. His home studio in Provo, Utah, is where the painting hangs on a wall.
“What it’s saying is the country is divided,” McNaughton said.
“These are people who support the Constitution as it is. These are people who are confused as to what it should be. And these are the patriots of the past,” he said, pointing to the figures in the painting.
“The premise of the painting is I believe the Constitution is inspired” by the divine, he said. “This is probably the most controversial painting I’ve done.”
The painting was so controversial that some people thought it challenged the idea of separation of church and state.
McNaughton said the painting became national news after he first showed it in his private gallery about a dozen years ago.
One liberal woman in his studio was harsh in her criticism.
“What is this?” she said. “I hate it.”
McNaughton asked her why. She responded that she found the pregnant woman to be offensive.
“She bought a print of it to show the world how she hated it even more,” McNaughton said.
Another time, a well-known local artist came into his gallery in the Provo Mall and said, “This is not art! You can’t mix politics and religion.”
“I said, ‘What are you talking about? That’s exactly what art is.’ If it causes someone to think or to feel or to do it a lot, that’s what art is about,” McNaughton said.
“The guy just kind of twisted his face and walked out.”
He said it was a tiresome, uphill challenge to showcase his work in a mainstream art gallery.
“It’s just difficult to get it out there,” McNaughton said, and commercial galleries are “just not friendly to conservatives.”
“I haven’t even been able to purchase ads on Facebook. They won’t allow me. They won’t tell me why,” he said.
He said Facebook blocked his account for a year without an explanation during the government’s declared COVID-19 health emergency.
“I'll often integrate religious things and political things—definitely a no-no in the art world,” McNaughton told The Epoch Times. “If I were doing left-wing art, I would definitely see a huge increase [in sales].
“I still do well. I’m not complaining. There’s a lot of people in the country who appreciate what I do—fortunately.”
He considers his home studio his personal space and refuge, a place to display some of his best work and listen to his inner voice in total silence.
“My studio is where I study and read. This is where I paint everything,” McNaughton said. “I live a kind of simple, boring life, according to some people. I’m pretty much a steady Eddie type of guy. This is where I just kind of laser beam focus. One painting at a time.”
If there is a name for his art, it might be called “conservative realism.”
McNaughton said that painting highly detailed works is like putting together a puzzle. He spends about three months on each project.
Like fiction writer Stephen King in movies based on his novels, McNaughton likes to put himself in many of his works.
“I’m an easy model. I’m not really worried about what anyone thinks. A lot of the paintings are very personal,” he said.
“Good things are worth taking your time on. I want them to have maximum impact when you see them online. That’s how most people see my work. There’s a little bell that goes off when it’s right.”
McNaughton hopes the new Trump administration will open doors for conservative artists in the mainstream market.
He’s met the incoming president twice before, most recently at his mansion at Mar-A-Lago. He said he’s not one to compromise his beliefs for the sake of making money or see his job as anything less than a part of the political conversation.
“We’re on a trajectory toward destruction unless we turn things around. Hopefully, that’s going to happen with this administration,” McNaughton said.
‘Joke Is on Conservatives’
Brad Stine is a Christian conservative comedian who lives in Tennessee and pulls no punchlines with his personal beliefs.Stine, 64, felt that for years, the entertainment industry’s joke has often been at the expense of conservative standup comedy.
Liberal comedians like to believe that the power of comedy is “theirs and theirs alone,” he said, “that they get not only to dictate who gets on Netflix or whatever, but what content is necessary.”
“It’s no different with actors and musicians with what they’re allowed to believe in.”
In his youth, Stine began performing magic tricks in bars and restaurants in southern California while sharpening his comedy skills touring colleges with other comedians.
Stine’s career took off after he made his first television appearance on the Comedy Club Network in the late 1980s. He has also appeared at other popular venues, including MTV’s Half Hour Comedy Hour and A&E’s Evening at the Improv.
In 2009, Stine had an epiphany. He realized there was more to comedy than finding humor in the crude and mundane.
“I think what happened to me is I just came to this deep ‘come to Jesus moment,’” Stine told The Epoch Times. “It was literal for me. I just got to a point in my life where I realized comedy is wonderful. And it’s a wonderful engine to take down a notch the self-appointed elite.”
In the big picture, “life is short, and you need to know God,” said Stine, who uses comedy to push the boundaries of culture in service to a higher power.
“It definitely took me out of the specific comedy realm.”
The flip side is that being a Christian and a conservative doesn’t open doors to comedy clubs in Hollywood and New York City, he said.
It can be frustrating as a “clean” comedian—hence the title of his seventh album, “Laugh While It’s Still Legal.”
When it comes to mocking progressive movements like diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), transgenderism, and critical race theory, Stine is unapologetic.
Stine believes conservative humor aims to break down liberal taboos with laughter, irony, and sarcasm. The whole point is to say what you’re not allowed to and “push the envelope” against everyone, he said.
“I’m a Christian conservative. I’ve been mocked, ridiculed, and maligned in comedy on SNL [Saturday Night Live] and standup for years and years and years.
“We learn to kind of roll with the punches,” he said. “I had to learn to be thick-skinned because of my philosophy and my religion. I had to learn to separate skills from content.”
All of this came at the expense of being invited to perform in front of mainstream audiences, he said.
“I don’t curse. I don’t like others cursing. If you are a progressive leftist, then yes, you’re not going to be pleased with my material,” Stine said.
Taking ‘Patriot’ Art to the Streets
“Creative patriot” Scott LoBaido lives on Staten Island in New York City and has paid the price for being a conservative painter, muralist, and sculptor, he said.The 59-year-old street artist said his punishment has come in the form of ridicule and rejection from the art community, assault, and even jail for his political protests.
“I wanted to go find myself in the big city of Manhattan because that’s where the art world was. And I was horrified at the amount of hatred for civil servants, patriotism, our flag, our military. That was coming from the creative community—the art world. I was pretty shocked by it.”
To progressives, “I’m not an artist to them,” LoBaido said.
“I’m still behind the curtain of this so-called tolerant, open-minded elitist club. I was like [expletive] this. My calling was going to be bringing the American flag back to life through the power of art.”
LoBaido has created thousands of versions of the American flag in paintings and street murals.
His latest work is a portrait of Trump after the first failed attempt at assassination, pumping his fist with the flag behind him.
He sees his art as both a way of political self-expression and a bulwark against the progressive left.
In 2006, the award-winning artist launched his Flag Across America tour, a project to paint a U.S. flag on a rooftop in all 50 states. He did a second tour in 2015.
He’s had a few scrapes with the law.
LoBaido was arrested by New York City police in March after throwing a pizza outside City Hall in protest of new environmental restrictions on coal- and wood-fired ovens.
In 2022, NYPD officers busted him after he poured red paint on the sidewalk outside the Manhattan district attorney’s office to protest crime policies.
He received national acclaim from conservatives and ridicule from liberals for painting a thin blue line to support the NYPD in 2020, countering the “defund the police” movement after the death of George Floyd.
In September, LoBaido painted a picture of Trump in 31 seconds at a rally in Madison Square Garden.
The Epoch Times reached out to the New York Artists Guild for comment on this story.
The Chicago Artists Guild said the team could not speak on the broader topic as a smaller nonprofit gallery in the city.
“However, politics can certainly play a role in whether or not an artist’s work is selected to be shown in a particular space, especially those considered to be more prestigious or ‘blue chip’,” a guild spokesman told The Epoch Times.
The term “blue chip art” refers to the creations of the most prominent and identifiable artists, whose pieces consistently fetch hefty sums, according to invaluable.com.
In the meantime, LoBaido hopes that a second Trump presidency will encourage more conservative artists to come out of the political closet.
“They are still in the shadows and the closets. They eventually will come out in droves. I know it for a fact. Because I see it firsthand,” LoBaido said.
Power of Poetry
Joseph MacKenzie is an award-winning poet whose work has appeared in prestigious publications.He considers himself a conservative in the tradition of 18th-century British philosopher Edmund Burke, who believed in the importance of religious institutions for the health of the state.
“Trump intersects very well with Burkean conservatism—with the true English conservatism,” MacKenzie said.
In 2017, MacKenzie emerged from relative obscurity when national newspapers, such as the Independent of London and The Scotsman of Edinburgh, published the entirety of a poem he composed for Trump’s first inauguration.
In “Pibroch of the Domhnall,” MacKenzie pays tribute to Trump’s Scottish ancestry, his “brash” personality, and as a fighter against tyranny.
In the second stanza, MacKenzie writes:
MacKenzie wrote Trump’s second inaugural poem in anticipation of the president’s reelection in 2020.
His first poem, part of which is critical of former President Barack Obama, angered many in the media.
“The way in which the poem was received, and the vitriol from the left, combined with worldwide shock that the Democrats no longer owned inaugural poetry, effectively changed my life in both positive and negative ways,” MacKenzie told The Epoch Times.
He also got death threats for his poetry.
“You kind of just ignore those,” he said. “They’re kind of shocking at first, I have to say.”
Both poems appear on the Society of Classical Poets’ website.
MacKenzie hopes the Trump inaugural team will choose “Pibroch of the Domhnall” for his inauguration on Jan. 20.
As a traditionalist Catholic, MacKenzie views poetry as a force for transformation—when done correctly, it can change the course of history.
“A poet responds directly to the mood of the country,” he said. “That’s what an inaugural poet must do. That’s what a true poet must do.
“Poetry is not self-expression. The poet is ordained to all mankind. The poet is ordained to the people. He shouldn’t be standing on a high podium looking down on people.”
He has won many awards, including the Society of Classical Poets Prize in 2020, the Scottish International Open Poetry Competition in 1994, and the St. John’s College Poetry Prize in 1984.
MacKenzie, who runs a small library in New Mexico, said that classical poetry has the power to “smash modernism to smithereens” under the right conditions in society.
“Poetry is a gift from on high. If you don’t recognize inspiration, and if you don’t acknowledge revelation, then you will never produce poetry in your society.
“The fundamental condition of poetry is a society that recognizes the divine and revelation. Without divinity, without revelation, you have no inspiration. All those things come from on high,” MacKenzie said.
Culture is the body of truth in society, and without culture, even politics won’t last, he said.
“We are at a difficult moment [in history]” he said. “Yes, it is perilous. But I think a poet can save it.”
“When you have a story, and when you have a poet to put it in a framework, and you give it the nobility of his language, then you are a free man. And you’re seen as such by the world.”
