Paint like no-one sees
31.12.25
I’m not sure when, but something changed in me; I came to fundamentally believe that no-one wanted to hear my story, no-one would be interested in my perspective, my thoughts, my words, my music, my pictures.
So I stopped. I stopped writing. I stopped singing, I made pictures with no explanation. I almost stopped thinking.
Who wants to listen to another middle aged woman from comfortable southern England in 2025? Comfortable job, comfortable relationship, comfortable house and comfortable shoes. What is left of the person I used to be? A few unsettling left-wing posts on social media from my sofa? Calling out a few racists after a glass of red wine?
What riled me today? Israel thinking it can choose which AID agencies operate in Gaza. Another way of blocking help to suffering Palestinians. I’m just a ‘Prole,’ what would I truly understand about the situation? What are lies and what are truths? Am I being manipulated into thinking? Am I being manipulated into thinking I have no consequence?
There is a red line. Crossed again and again. Sometimes you don’t have to see every detail, experience the climate, the culture, to see the red line. And the red line, it stays in your mind, through every wilderness, through every storm. Are ethics politics? How did we allow doing what is so blatantly wrong to be politically justified? Am I just naïve in thinking that we have a collective responsibility to do what is morally right?
The encaustic piece above is one of an A3 pair on wooden panel - Thin red line 1 and 2. I wanted to hint at a vague and wild wilderness; elemental. A place without the obvious mark of humanity and then the red line. Everywhere. There is nowhere to hide. Spawned from my own sense of outraged helplessness at what has happened in Gaza and now confounded by recent events in Venezuela.
Comments
Post a Comment