I Will Never Unsee George W. Bush’s 9/11 Paintings, and I Regrettably Wish the Same for You

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When George W. Bush decided to take up painting later in life, he could have played it safe, with photos of puppies and children and landscapes. He’s done some of that, but he’s also consistently surprised people—there were those nudes that were discovered in an email hack , and after that, the provocative decision to paint portraits of world leaders like Vladimir Putin and Tony Blair. And now Dubya the shock artist has done it again: Just in time for the 25 th anniversary, his latest paintings depict his experience of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and their aftermath.

Bush shared four of his paintings on Instagram on Friday, writing, “Twenty-five years ago, the actions of an enemy revealed the spirit of the American people. These and other paintings are my reflections of this solemn anniversary.” He added that the work will be on display this month at his presidential center in Dallas.

The first painting he shared was the most notable, because it’s a painted version of a well-known to the point of memedom photo of Bush on 9/11, the moment when his then–White House chief of staff Andrew Card interrupted a visit with elementary school students to whisper in his ear that America was under attack. Online, this is commonly rendered with a caption of dialogue that goes, “Sir, a second plane has hit the Twin Towers.” In brush strokes that are spare, sketchy, and childlike, Bush manages to perfectly capture his countenance in the original photo—he’s gotten much better at painting since those nudes. (I would contend that he’s got a stronger style and point of view than another up-and-coming artist from the political realm, Hunter Biden .) Still, it makes sense to question why a painting of such a somber moment is so colorful, almost whimsical. The other paintings in the gallery are of smoke rising above the New York City skyline, a hand holding a police badge, and a group of people standing on top of a building holding an American flag.

What exactly is Bush doing here, sharing his own interpretation of a meme of himself? Online, some users called out the paintings as disrespectful and even ghoulish; one person pointed out that Bush is coming perilously close to fulfilling a 2014 Onion headline: “George W. Bush Debuts New Paintings Of Dogs, Friends, Ghost Of Iraqi Child That Follows Him Everywhere.” Bush doesn’t deserve to get to have feelings about a moment he fumbled so badly, this line of argument goes, nor should he get the chance to rehabilitate his image given how he responded. At worst, the paintings make it look like Bush is treating a profound national crisis as his own personal trauma, as if all the people who died in the war on terrorism matter less to him than how embarrassing it is that he has to deal with being a meme.

But I’m not sure Bush is self-aware enough to know that he’s a meme, that a lot of people consider him a war criminal (he’d get some of this if he reads his comments, though, to be fair), or that his ugly Putin painting could have had real geopolitical consequences.