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| 'Asylum 1', Acrylics & Paper Collage on Panel, 100 cm X 100 cm, 2011 |
Amongst the
paintings I produced in 2011 was ‘Asylum 1’. It’s probably not my most
successful piece as I suspect I tried to squeeze too much into a single image. One of its themes was an
attempted response to the political situation as we got used to the new reality
of coalition government. Despite claims
of togetherness in adversity and shared political responsibility, there was the
distinct suspicion that the ideological maniacs would soon show their true
(blue) colours and we’d see who was really running the asylum. Some months on, the painting justifies its
undercurrents of paranoia increasingly.
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| Grantham, Lincolnshire, January 2013 |
If the
opportunist exploitation of the global crisis in Capitalism to pursue their
divisive, inequitable social project weren’t enough, now we must endure days of
sickening, posthumous adulation at the shrine of Thatcher. The prospect of spending large sums of public
money on an overblown funeral for the Queen of Privatisation, whilst slashing
the meagre benefits on which so many of the system’s surplus ‘human resources’
rely for their very survival, seems the ultimate insult. It threatens to drive me beyond anger into
simple bafflement and despair. That way
madness lies so I’ll attempt to make vaguely constructive, if tangential,
creative connections instead.
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| Grantham, Lincolnshire, January 2013 |
Thatcher’s
origins in the Lincolnshire town of Grantham are well documented. I drive though there regularly and have come to
regard it as exactly the kind of place likely to spawn such a personality,
(smug, mono-cultural, complacently conservative and essentially lacking in
anything like imagination or broadened horizons). It makes my own hometown and county capital
of Lincoln, a few miles further up the road, appear positively sophisticated, -
some achievement!
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| Grantham, Lincolnshire, January 2013 |
At the turn of
the year I parked the car and took my camera in search of something inspiring
in Grantham. The results provided some
useful material for my on-going H&S-themed ‘Risk Assessment’ project, in the form of the astounding fluorescent hazard warning graphics that
now adorn the town’s Victorian railway bridges.
The lady in question was fond of evoking ‘Victorian values’ and the kind
of private enterprise that built these edifices but had less to say about the
rank hypocrisy and widespread social deprivation that also characterised the
period. She also instigated the devaluing of Britain’s tradition of industry and manufacturing that they represent.
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| Grantham, Lincolnshire, January 2013 |
My ‘R.A’ project exists in the background
of my current activities but it’s still live and may be subject to further development
in the future. Appropriately enough,
it’s another attempt to respond, somewhat obliquely, to my recent feelings of
impotent anger and political/societal frustrations. As already mentioned, the basic idea is to
apply an ironic Risk Assessment approach to the bigger existential threats that
society and authority pose to our wellbeing or sanity. For now, here’s the most recent of my ‘Risk Assessment’ pieces and some more
of the photographs I took on that bright, chilly January day.
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| 'Risk Assessment 3: Tell You Lies', Acrylics & Paper Collage on Paper, 60 cm X 45 cm, 2013 |
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| 'Risk Assessment 4: Make You Sick', Acrylics & Paper Collage on Paper, 60 cm X 45 cm, 2013 |
My photographing of
the bridges was accompanied by the regular passage of express trains on the
East Coast Main Line that they bear.
This relates, in turn, to another potential theme that may emerge in
future work. It has to do with various
forms of transport and communications infrastructure and is nominally labeled ‘Control Systems’. It only exists on the pages of a notebook as
yet so I’ll wait for another day to discuss it further, if and when
something tangible emerges from it.
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| Grantham, Lincolnshire, January 2013 |
I won’t pretend
that 2013 has started well. The radio
brings nothing but bad news, we struggle to emerge from an interminable winter,
my arthritis has ramped up to increasingly concerning levels and I’m engaged in
a frustrating battle with my current painting. In the light of all that, it feels
encouraging to be still making creative connections and planning future activity.
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| Grantham, Lincolnshire, January 2013 |
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