Geopolitics for Children
OMG 2021
43 X 54 cm
oil on canvas
This painting is the title piece of the series, Space-Time. It set the tone for the works which follow- which was to look at these present times on a grand-
scale and then bring the reality closer and closer to home.
We start by looking at the earth, as seen from the south pole. Radiating from the globe are twelve iconic buildings almost “growing out” of the Earth, all situated in the Northern hemisphere.
There are symbols of Multi-national companies orbiting the earth, connected by a blockchain, positioned at the angle of the axis of the earth.
This painting could be an illustration of a virus with the spiky parts being the spike proteins, or peplomers, that project from the surface of an enveloped virus.
The hot orange ocean is a consequence of developed nations emissions, a symbol of the Anthropocene. The satellite is shooting a laser beam at a hypersonic missile.
I love Paris 2021
52 X 62 cm
oil on canvas
Eikon is illustrating themes that centre on the ideas of truth, new technologies, global warming, the American pivot to the East, global justice, extreme political movements, nuclear war and food security (“Fiat Panis”).
These are positioned in a setting with a “humanoid” who is being sacrificed on a crucifix. The humanoid is unlike the Christ figure on the cross for it is unshackled and free and alive and is not sacrificing itself but rather the planet as it is hopeless to discover remedies for the problems it produces.
The humanoid is a reference to the past and humanity’s preoccupation with religious iconography but it also leapfrogs this iconographical reference into an unknown present or future- so that it takes the concept of sacrifice and who is being martyred now takes on a new meaning.
The highly intelligent raven on the opposite side of the cross (to the semi conductor) is both an ominous or transformational symbol in western art.
Taiwan 2021
52 X 62 cm
oil on canvas
The Kitchen continues on this journey of Space-Time but brings these grand themes closer to home, into my kitchen be exact.
In the painting “The Kitchen”(2024) there is an explosion on the splash-back of the kitchen wall. This interior portrait scene portrays the idea that we experience consciously and /or unconsciously threats to human civilisation in all the spaces we inhabit.
The Kitchen is a symbol of human civilisation in that culture progresses alongside the gastronomical practices of cultures all around the world. In “The Kitchen” I also portray a “jack-in-the-box”: illustrative of difficult and surprising events which always inject their disruptive contents in unpredictable, sometimes capricious ways.
See other details in “The kitchen”: drugs (lines on tray), Homo Naledi, Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the 21st Century”, self-referential paintings on wall (neo-liberalism, geopolitics. Etc,), Star of David on kitchen towel and 7.10 (7th October 2023) on oven display.