The Union

When lockdown and home teaching set in due to the COVID19 crisis, I found time to note initial ideas to get a painting down as soon as possible. And certainly in my current medium and format. And so from an tiny sketch came 'The Union'. Its a combination of visual messages weve all faced and collided together over recent weeks. It is a realisation of standing in the shadows of a changing history. I wanted depth with an unsafe sense. Key workers face a virus of which its power eclipses everyday life. Centre top, on the central virus cell, hopes and wishes fall from a central tree while figures pull and cut at the chains that hold the dead and dying. In the sky to the left, different suns with different histories shine down on empty streets. Two dogs, one ball, no owner. Two jesters flouting the rules and the spread, and a lone figure waves back to the pool of the suffering on the right side. In the foreground of the composition, Government letters hit the faces of the victims in the mud, while the keyworkers scramble. And in the distance, those same figures break off to free the bones of the patient, into the chest and up the mountainside, where the virus churns its will.
Or, take these messages into your own judgement. The Union, is watercolour layered onto an indian ink drawing.