
"Just living is not enough", said the butterfly, "one must have sunshine,
freedom and a
little flower."
-Hans Christian Andersen
This site represents a collection of paintings, made over many years, since
I
began the
journey of learning how to paint. For me, this particular artform is a reflection of our widening
seperation and
exclusion from Nature. When we look into landscape art, or even practice it, the
urban
spectacle
is momentarily lifted and
a window is
presented into a world from which we have largely stepped away from.
"everyone must take the time to sit and watch the leaves turn red"
"April may be cruel, having to march in a chain, flowers, the birds, can begin
again"
"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day is hardly a
waste of
time"
Despite having passions for painting and gardening, I have always taken an interest as to why,
from a psycho-sociological perspective, these needs exist.
I'm aware that my own are derived from the misconception of freedom in
contemporary
societies,
specifically within the context of poorly built environments and
green-poverty outcomes, they are essentially sublimation sinks for an agrarian homesickness.
A place that many of us were exposed to, is represented by the preceding image.
Our pre-clearance home, standing on what is now the most
contaminated
land in the UK,
was situated
directly below the coal-fired power station and the source of
our formative experiences, i.e confined within a provincial pocket of
manufacturing, the windows framing the imagery of heavy industry
that produced not only goods but also identities, generated power and also exercised it.
It wouldn't be wholly unreasonable to regard this somewhat sulphurous, Dantesque scene, a
landscape of Marcusian Man amongst the
smoking
stacks as an additional candidate for Betjeman's ire. These areas populated by people, who
through
historical
circumstance and the stealing of the soil, were absorbed into the machine for perpetuity, from
the spinning Jenny with it's wheel of misfortune,
to the modern microcontroller and microcontrolling of Taylorism, the menchanic forwarned by Shelley,
except one turned parts into man, the other turned man into parts.
There
exists a certain
irony
within the
focal point,
in that the station was operated by a company called Manweb and despite utility, scrutiny
reveals a Lancastrian Leviathan amongst the mass industrial terraforming,
the furnace effluence conferred not just to lungs of the poor, the consequences
eventually
stoking the conscience of "Old Nick", although sadly not enough to sanction relief in his own backyard,
but also an unsolicited imposition on their senses.
For those captive, it
was an environmental assault - the broke got the smoke and
'civil
society' had become obscured.
With
regards to personal autonomy
, little has
changed, the viscous lattice is simply evolving to manWeb 3.0. Technological society is
essentially
polymorphic,
the tooling proliferates in various forms, complexity and scale, but it's encapsulated essence is
immutable,
to deliver the neo-trinity of profit, efficiency and control, to the detriment of the human spirit.
The new machine may forge itself, but the ghost inside will still haunt and creep
with bias.
I was still young when briefly introduced to a another place.
It came with an awareness that socio-economics were predominantly responsible for generational confinement,
Calvinist predestination was merely man-made, but
to leave behind the brick walls and class ceilings, I have a paintbrush and a spade.
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David Bellamy, Geoff Kersey, Peter |Woolley, Jonas Scheddtman, Lokash Dhaker, Ed .Q(Power Station Image), National Portrait Gallery(Ruskin Image), Jonny Gios, Sam Barber. https://environmentjournal.online/articles/most-contaminated-uk-towns-revealed. TinBath Media for site management. A special thanks to a special person for the consolation illustration, the sparrow never did come for the bread.