The Normalization of the Unthinkable

A visual protest by Let Z Be

First we flinch. Then we scroll. And then — we forget.

There’s a point where shock fades.
Where violence becomes aesthetic.
Where consumption is empty but applauded — and threat wears a smile.

In my Critical Pop Art series, I use saturated irony — zebras, pink guns, seductive palettes — to expose what society has stopped noticing. These works are not decorative.
They are alarms.

Each one was created in resistance to the terrifying ease with which we normalize the abnormal.

A pink gun, childlike in color, is pointed at identity, at innocence, at womanhood — and no one blinks.
A zebra shouts “DON’T” in a world trained to clap and consume.
A woman wears wings and still cannot fly — she’s stylized, silenced, sexualized.
A boy, just 18, is considered old enough to kill — but not to watch a rated film.
A Holocaust badge becomes an ironic sticker, glued to a body stripped of agency.

These are not metaphors.
They are reflections of what we’ve come to accept.

This is not about politics.
It’s about how numb we’ve become.

We dress oppression in symbols of freedom.
We applaud sacrifice before understanding its cost.
We silence outrage by calling it “too much,” while accepting the grotesque as “just how things are.”

Through these paintings, I reclaim my voice — not to provoke, but to reflect.
Not to offend, but to resist.
Not to scream — but to un-normalize.

Because if we don’t challenge what’s being normalized,
we become part of the silence that makes it possible.

This is Let Z Be.