True colours ... detail from Diann Bauer's Mad Hatters (2011). Click for the full image. Photograph: Diann Bauer/Paradise Row  Diann Bauer's drawings and paintings are a riot, whipping violent visuals into a frenzy. There's a jubilant splicing of motifs from action films, Manga cartoons, 16th-century western art, Japanese prints, contemporary architecture and, most recently, political sloganeering. It all breaks out across her large-scale works in a wild jumble, like shards of light projected through a fractured prism, or a grotesque mass of flesh following a big explosion.  In Battle Plans 1 (2007), rippling muscular hulks redolent of the pumped-up torsos of Baroque painting dissolve into strangely fleshy plumes of smoke culled from Japanese prints. Bludgeonerator (2006) similarly draws on Japanese art, melding samurai masks, limbs and clothing with the biomorphic forms of Zaha Hadid's architecture. There's a political punch to these puzzle-pictures. They dive headlong into a global culture hooked on aggression, confronting its allure to leave you shaky on your legs, both sickened and thrilled.  In her current exhibitions, the Berlin-based American artist takes politics a step further. In fonts and colours that recall carnival wagons and psychedelic 1960s posters, the paintings that make up The Enemy Is Everything That Might Happen combine catchphrases from extreme left and rightwing groups and explore the overlap. In a direct piece of commentary, Mama Grizzly layers three different texts on top of each other. Conflating George Bush with Sarah Palin, a vast W stretches across the parameters of a huge Mama Grizzly shield. Rippling through all this are Karl Marx's words about history repeating itself, "first as tragedy, then as farce".  Why we like her: Bauer's timely comic book drawing series Rush Limbaugh Is Sick is a ribald satire of American private healthcare policies and propaganda, including the "death panels" rumour put about by Palin and other Republican hardliners to tarnish Obama's national health provision proposal. It sends Limbaugh, the leading US DJ and de facto Republican spokesman, through a raucous learning curve that takes its stylistic cues from cult gay artist Tom of Finland.  In another life: To prepare for her current show, the artist delved into cyberspace, creating a secret Facebook alter ego whose special interests include the Tea Party and whose favourite quote is: "Give me liberty or give me death!"  Where can I see her? The Enemy Is Everything That Might Happen is at Paradise Row, London W1D, until 18 June; Rush Limbaugh Is Sick is at Kynastonmcshine, London SE14, until 17 July.
Skye Sherwin: Visual artist whose large-scale works draw on everything from Manga to the Baroque to make their political statements