My Thinking

Progress and the Dream are what have drove the Enlightenment and the last three centuries of civilisation framed by the expansion of democracy and capitalism. But now we seem to be cruising on empty going nowhere. Progress has been reduced to new technology and economic measurements which are less and less meaningful to us as people. The Dream of where this progress is leading us seems more like a delusion or a fantasy hiding the terrifying vision of climate collapse and the very real reactions that are consuming the periphery: war, famine, autocracy and artificial barriers to migration.

What’s Happening in the Studio

The technology has changed access and appreciation of imagery, painting is no longer about making the elsewhere and the other visible. Painting is about questioning how we visually contextualise who and where we are. The dream of progress towards a utopia just beyond the horizon may have faded but the idea of history and the part we are playing is very much en vogue. The images I am working with include clippings of the fall of Bagdad 2003, the fall of Kabul 2021 and the invasion of the Ukraine 2022, the visualisation of Causa Belli and the pursuit of freedom, papering over the human suffering that surgical strikes and drone warfare seek to minimise. The core of these conflicts is that the expansion of democracy and capitalism has not just failed to alleviate Marx’s alienation but has lead to it’s expansion. The next layer of imagery looks at alienation in social media me living my best life and #instadaily, where celebrity is now clearly divorced from what you do and privacy has been replaced by the idea of controlling the narrative. The next layer looks at housing, heating and the infrastructure that makes the everyday possible that which we assume but for how long.

The Last Series

The current series of landscapes relate the watercolour sketchbooks from Tocantins, Brazil, of roads, bridges, farms, buildings, the physical infrastructure that frames existence. These paintings are on repurposed tote bags, part of a plan D, a sustainable practice sketching the invisible, marginalised, rural, cattle and soya producing Brazil on the ethically sensitive marketing tools of what westerns use to advertise the values they wish to be associated. Paintings importance is about taking imagery out of the flux of news and social media, to create an object which becomes a primary source of understanding for our time. That is make history but its importance to us, as a society, is to allow us to reflect on who we are and where are we going.