Month: May 2017

The Final Show was launched on May 5th and will hang until June 3rd. The paintings are below. It is fantastic to see your art in an exhibition. I am so proud – it makes the effort of the past year well worth while. I am so grateful to all the Tutors for their support over the past 8 years

 

l on

The growth in the Sex industry across the world has been one of the major scandals of our time. Hundreds of Girls are selling themselves for sex in a major City like Manchester every day. Perhaps one of the worst aspects of this trade is the use of single mothers. Young women abandoned by the fathers of their children have no jobs, no money and no childcare. They seem to feel that they have no choice but to take to prostitution. Once drawn in they become trapped and continue working for years to feed their children and to provide a decent life for them.

Oil on Board 110x110cm

These young women feel shame and low self esteem but their plight could get worse as Governments move to disrupt human trafficking for sex. The Scandinavian law would outlaw payments for sex. This could dramatically cut the number of customers and force young mothers into more dangerous activity on the streets.

oil on Canvas 84x59cm

Benefit cuts to the most vulnerable in our society and closure of dedicated mental health facilities have led to a surge in the number of people sleeping rough on the streets of our cities. The basic benefit they can receive does not even cover the cost of a hostel bed. Many of them have become addicted to hard drugs and many steal to supplement income from begging. Society has abandoned these people to a short desperate life while we carry on with our shopping and lives of pleasure.

oil on board 110x110cm

As the UK Government seeks to cuts its deficit, cuts reach deeper and deeper into our lives. It seems crazy but care for a beautiful lake in Snowdonia is being endangered. The number of Wardens is being cut and the scope of their duties restricted. Funding for the Eradication of alien plants Japanese Balsam has been cut and actions to reduce the flow of nutriments into the lake curtailed leaving Green algae to grow

I have sought to reflect my concerns in a dark gloomy image. The eerie beauty is then misleading hiding a threat to the lake’s ecosystem

oil on board 59x110cm

The Death of a young child in early 2017 on the beach at Lesbos was only one of thousands of Refugees lost as a result of the vicious battle for Aleppo but for me it was the most poignant bringing home the senseless brutality of war and the lack of an adequate response in some countries to the refugee crisis. I envisaged the dreadful price humanity may be asked to pay for this as the Gods release the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Oil on Board 110×120 cm

The little boy died on the beach alone – even the skies were crying that day

Oil on Canvas  59×84 cm

On the 17 July 2014, Russian backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine shot down MH17 a civilian airliner carrying 298 passengers and crew. There are always senseless acts in any war but this seemed to lack a shred of Humanity and will always be a stain on those involved and on all of us who fail to settle our disagreements peacefully

oil on board 110x110cm

We are near the end of an incredible journey. Eight years ago I started a Fine Arts Degree at Bangor University. With six others we began a Fine Art Prep Course in Bala North Wales. Two wonderful years painting, sculpting and printing and having a wonderful time. Two years were spent at the community hall in Pentrefelin and the last four years I have studied at the Memorial Hall in Penrhyndeudraeth.

We handed in Journals on Wednesday and now we just have to finish our art and hang our final show. I am looking forward to seeing the show on the walls but most of all receiving the degree will be special. I took a degree in Commerce in 1968 from University College Dublin. I was working and could not take the time off for the Degree Ceremony. The University posted the degree to me but its not the same. This time I was able to attend my degree ceremony in Bangor – it was fabulous

I had been trying to express my feeling about the fate of the 298 passengers and crew of MH17 by painting portraits of three of the loved ones of the victims. It was not working – maybe in one of the paintings I captured the grief and in another the anger but for them to be relevant they have to be both relations and in the airport – that was proving a problem. The paintings are too invasive of the privacy they have a right to in their grief.

But I have found that if I am going to address this subject then I have to take the challenge of painting the terrible images you see when an airliner full of people has crashed. I have the broken plane like Nash’s graveyard of German Planes shot down. Now I have the graveyard of MH17 and her 298 passengers  shot from the sky in a senseless act of inhumanity.

The painting is oil on board and measures 110x110cm image