Make Love Not War | Blake Emory | Original Oil Painting

Original oil painting by Blake Emory · Painter, sculptor, and filmmaker · Available at Marcolina’s Fine Arts Gallery, Tampa, Florida · Ships worldwide

In Make Love Not War the whole canvas is black and white zebra stripes, and a figure seen from behind is almost lost in them. The stripes wrap the body and keep going out into the background, so the torso only shows up when you look for it. Both hands hold a revolver low against the back, barrel pointing down, and from the tip of the barrel hangs a single red rose. It is the only color in the painting.

That one red does all the work. Everything else is a hard choice between black and white, and the rose is the thing that fits neither. The gun is held out of sight behind the back, but what hangs off it is a flower, so the weapon is still there and has stopped doing its job. Red is what people reach for when they talk about violence, and here it is hope, the possibility that something can change.

The title is a slogan from the 1960s antiwar movement, and Blake paints it without raising his voice. There is no crowd and no battlefield, just one figure with no face, which puts the question on whoever is looking: what you choose to do with what you are holding, and what each of us does to shape the world around us.

Collector’s Note

At 50 by 72 inches, this is a tall, large original, and it fills a wall. The black and white pattern goes with almost any room, and the single red rose gives the eye somewhere to land. The stripes play tricks as you move around it, which makes it a piece that starts a conversation. We recommend seeing it in person or on a virtual viewing.

Acquisition

Available through Marcolina’s Fine Arts Gallery with worldwide shipping, full insurance, and professional art packaging. Payment plans available. Private viewings by appointment in Tampa, Florida. Virtual viewings available for collectors anywhere in the world. Payment plans are arranged directly with Marcolina, and every inquiry is answered personally within 24 hours. Each original comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. Contact us to inquire. New to collecting? Read our collector guide →

A standard shipping rate is charged at checkout. Once your work is packed, we calculate the actual shipping cost for its size and destination. If there is a difference, we will follow up to either invoice the additional amount or refund the difference, whichever applies.

About the Artist

Blake Emory was born in 1983 and raised in Plant City, Florida, in a family of artists, inventors, and musicians. Alongside his brother James, creativity was the family language: music, theater, sculpture, set design, and mural and canvas painting, all treated as one continuous practice. He sold his first drawing in third grade and has not really stopped since.

Painting and sculpture became the throughline. He debuted his Zebra Love Collection at Art Basel Miami in 2014, made the life-size Babe Ruth sculpture now at the St. Petersburg Museum of History, and has painted large murals across Tampa Bay and New Mexico. His giant octopus mural at Cage Brewing in St. Petersburg, painted with Guillo Pérez 3, was named by Creative Loafing Tampa Bay among the area’s must-see murals.

He also works in film. His short The Ethereal: Episode I was shown at the Salvador Dalí Museum and premiered at Tampa Theater in 2025, and a second episode is in production. He lives and works in St. Petersburg, Florida, and his original paintings and sculpture are available through Marcolina’s Fine Arts Gallery.

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