My exhibition Prayers For The Planet: We are all the same opened on Friday night and it was fabulous. The photo [taken by me so please excuse!] shows one wall. I am delighted that people really seem to be understanding the depth of my work. Whilst they are colourful etc etc there is something else 'beyond' which people are connecting with.
I think art which is explicit sometimes falls into the didactic. Neither are sustainably interesting. I also believe that art which merely reflects destruction, mutilation or whatever disempowers by dispelling hope. It is also exhausting. Although I think some artists and commentators believe otherwise or maybe they are stuck in theory which needs rethinking? Maybe because we are so bombarded in the media with scenes of war, brutality and death we are now more vulnerable than ever to the disempowering qualities of simple reminder?
I hope that my work quietly takes the viewer to places which I may never have thought of. In this sense I relinquish the creation of a painting's next stage to the viewer [and this could be different for each viewer]. That by invoking memory [either of this life time of at some cellular level] I hope my work propels the viewer beyond just simple reminder. The brutal and destructive will always be present in absentia. Like a pendulum the opposite is always in potential. However, by creating work which causes people to be touched by spirit I hope that energy is reinstated in the investigation for alternatives and positive ways of being on this planet.
On Tuesday the 16 th October 1-3 pm I am presenting at the University of Queensland's 'Australian Centre For Peace and Conflict Studies'. My topic is Art, Artists + Conversations = Peace Talks? You can access all details @ http://www.uq.edu.au/acpacs/index.html?page=69874&pid=25918
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