These are my ‘Paper Warriors’, a contradiction in terms. The theme of this collection is the position of man on this planet; his frailty and his vanity and his inescapable mortality, despite his best efforts to make this not so.
The working method and materials employed are essential to the theme, but they and the theme are open to a complex and individual reading, provoking discussion on many levels.
Cardboard, household string, paper string, willow, steel support.
A project instigated by lockdown and in response to being part of a team making masks and scrub hats for community use. An opportunity to be creative in a very difficult and different world. Watch this space for more work when I have time.
A strange time
A quiet time
A time for charts and graphs and numbers
Sorrow, such deep sorrow
Survival and loss
Deep loss
Faceless warriors and brutal machines
A time for screens.
For sons and their families, for a brother and sisters and cousins and friends.
The virtual hug and story time with a stuffed bear.
Return to those screens and count the faces.
Time to sow
Time to grow.
Faceless warriors and brutal machines.
What can I do? What can I offer?
I have to protect; the littlest soul.
What can I do?
Time to sew
Time to grow
A small stitch for a bigger concern.
Cutting and stitching and turning and pressing.
And there is the magic.
A thing to protect both you and me.
And there is the magic.
The shape and the form……..
The start of a journey……...
Faceless warriors and brutal machines.
Rescued from their rough string bindings, these spoons take on an invented history. In a fleeting pretense, their showy new identity fails and gives way to their rusting base metal.
Spoons, beading, wire, silver leaf.
Following on from the Paper Warrior series, Fools Gold continues the theme of fragility and sham. The gold isn't real and the gems are substitutes. The cardboard gives the pieces a look of substance but we know this will not stand the test of time.
Cardboard, paper string, household string, found object.
Objects that have had another life, a use, now become disfunctional or rather now have a different life; one full of fun and intrigue, creating multi functional things with no purpose except to please.
Dis-functional - mouse one
‘In the end, everyone is aware of this: nobody keeps any of what he has, and life is only a borrowing of bones’ Pablo Neruda
In our mad muddle of communication, is anybody really listening?
steel, galvanised wire, valves, communications ephemera.
The drawing unravels; falling away into oblivion. The plan is lost and the frailty revealed. Manipulated wire on acrylic base. 30 x 12 x 15cms