Miracles
The Miracles 'drawings' are inspired by recent events in the US and the imagined world of conspiracy theorists. They are painted with a graphite solution on paper. They mix footage of esoteric ceremonies with skies from Medieval Books of Hours. I was also returning in the landscapes to an older painting of mine, Cielo, which I felt I had never adequately explored. By coincidence, Cielo (from Cielo Drive, the scene of Sharon Tate's murder) means 'heavens'. Mr Punch and the devil make their appearance as maligne trickster characters. A few years ago a friend gave me Russell Hoban’s post-apocalyptic masterpiece Riddley Walker, in which the devil and Mr Punch appear as Mr Clevver and Punch (and Pooty).
Edges
I took my summer holiday in 2023 in Surrey. I wanted to visit the Peaslake home of the illustrator, Margaret Tarrant and also to look at a number of Victorian Oxford Movement and Edwardian Charles Spooner churches. In this county, developed into a commuter belt for London, I was intrigued by the paradox of cosy, Arts & Crafts dwellings surrounded by formidable high hedges and locked gates. Looking through one of these, I was questioned by a member of staff. What was I doing? What did I want?
Shortly afterwards I watched an amazing and moving film* about people trying to escape North Korea. I was struck by the way in which the human race creates edges to lock people in or out. And by the extraordinary hardships of people around the world. The struggles we all face, big and small.
*Beyond Utopia, dir. Ann Shin
My Octopus Lover
Grotesque, sad and noble, the octopus has a feeling brain in every tentacle.
After my accident in 2022, confined to my home alone for 7 months, the precarious state of the world outside became a focus in my life. The Miracles and Edges works arise from this period of World Anxiety. As I began to work again, I found myself working in parallel on work which was a more subjective reflection of my period of confinement. These works come from a different place, a more interior place. Whilst ‘Edges’ considers the world as divided by boundaries, in these Octopus works the female protagonist, with eyes closed, appears to soar above it.
EM 2024