it has been a drought. Attention spent in other places, gathering new ideas and feelings about the way the world is turning for me. I have been attempting to gain acceptance into galleries and it has been a fraught one. I had hoped by now the passage into a place of fairness, good business practice and positive endeavour would be on my cards but still no, the paintings languish in my overcrowded studio, wishfully dreaming for the opportunity to hang on a different wall in a new space with new eyes feasting upon them for a change. I have been studying a difficult course in a field so far removed from my usual preoccupations, one of International Urban and Environmental Management. It has opened my eyes to a myriad of real life concerns and dealings as we try to come to terms with the rising overcrowded populations of cities, the threat of peak oil on our whole livelihoods and the best practice way to engage communities in addressing their concerns in the way they see fit. How does this work with being a painter I ask, well my painting is about what I see in the world, what I know and what I understand. I try and unravel the complexities of being, as it affects me and others, who are we really? How does where we live and what we have to contend with, affect how we interpret and react to the world around us. Whilst reading about the struggle of millions to survive on the fringes of burgeoning cities and seeing how complicated and complex the problems are at trying to sort out the 'mess' of the mass habitat, I felt that no one really knew what to do and how to get there and in the end it was jsut a case of The Blind leading the Blind. Hence the painting below was my response.
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| The Blind Leading the Blind 100 x 76cm oil on canvas SDobkins 2012 |
