Day: April 20, 2017

The battle for Aleppo filled our TV screens in 2016/17. There have been so many atrocities in the terrible Syrian War but none so poignant as the death of a child on the beach at Lesbos when his tiny body was picked up out of the sea by a police officer and placed gently on the beach. I wondered where he had come from and what terror he and his family had suffered,

My painting of his lifeless body floating on the surf was very difficult. Even the skies are crying. The picture suffered huge damage as I made it – literally falling apart. I allowed all this damage to become part of the art

Surely this would change things. The superpowers squabbling would realise that something terrible had happened and would try to solve the disaster in Syria around a table instead of with bombs. Things as dreadful as the death of this child seem to be part of war and seem accepted – collateral damage.

I imagined though that the Gods would not ignore this and that a terrible price would be paid by humanity for our toleration or indifference to this tragedy even opening the first four seals and releasing the four horsemen of the apocalypse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was one on the highlights of my final year at Bangor University Fine Art Degree in November 2016. I had long wondered about these paintings. I had studied them as part of my essay on the sublime. The expressionists were not shy about attaching the label sublime to their art which would make me nervous but you have to picture the time – the cold war. The two superpowers lived on the edge of nuclear war and the battle of cultures for the hearts and minds of the world was intense.

Into this mix steps the CIA with hundreds of millions of dollars

Whatever the truth of all of this, these paintings have presence. Its not just about the size its the sheer exuberance, the inventiveness of it all.

It must have seemed like a dream for the Irascibles their paintings were taken all around the ‘free’ world and always lauded.

I was Impressed by the Pollacks who would not, the Rothko’s yes although I did not quite feel the quasi-religious experience. I did, however, fall forever in love with the work of Clifford Still. Now here was a man to be admired. He kept all his art and left it to the nation where it is preserved by the Clifford Still Gallery in Denver. Denver was one of my favourite US cities when I worked in Investment Banking but I was there to meet Investors with no spare time for Gallery visits – what a pity.

I just loved his blue work which invites you in to wonder at its depth and what could the red and yellow be saying – quite profound.