Aleppo

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