After seeing a photograph of Ryan at an ArtRage exhibit last spring, Shetterly said he knew Ryan was exactly the figure he needed – someone on the streets taking direct action, being courageous and telling the truth. What started for Shetterly as a once-off painting of a hero has turned into a national organization: Americans Who Tell The Truth, which exhibits the portraits across the US and runs programs in education and community activism.Ī portrait of Clifford Ryan, a native Syracusean and founder of OGs Against Violence, sets off the exhibit at ArtRage. In his paintings, 23 of which are showing at ArtRage Gallery on Hawley Avenue until October 29, Shetterly uses the power of the portrait to shine a light on courageous local and national Americans, living and dead. The paintings are cathartic for Shetterly - a way to mitigate his frustration and anger at America’s systems of power by focusing on the people trying to uphold the values of democracy, despite the subjects being historically left out of the American democracy narrative in the first place. He painted the American poet’s portrait, the first of over 260 portraits of “American Truth Tellers,” and counting.

And then one day I looked at my studio wall and there was a quote from Walt Whitman I had stuck up there years ago.”

“I was in such a condition that I knew I had to do something positive with all that energy. “I was so angry I was becoming a total nuisance to everyone around me,” Shetterly said. In the year that followed, Robert Shetterly, a Maine-based multimedia artist and longtime activist in the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War protests, became increasingly distraught by American violence. Then, the US invaded Iraq, killing over 200,000 people. In 2001, two planes dove into the World Trade Center, killing over 2,000 people. Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.

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