Partition Poem III

 

Oil on Canvas 1700mm x 1820mm

£POA

 

Finished.
Well, is a semi-abstract work ever finished? I’m not sure but the canvas is falling apart and I have to stop sometime.

There’s a subtitle to this work which is:

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‘All that is wrong in the world and All that is right in the world.’

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I’ve spoken previously about my song ‘Kissing the Land’ written while I was travelling in Southern Africa. Actually, the original thought came from a book of poetry I was skim reading in a small bookstore there, the writer seemed to be expressing an unbound love for the land, a land whose political elite were not treating her particularly well at the time.

The idea of Kissing the Land seems today to give mixed messages, I mean, ‘Partition Poem’ refers to the displaced finally returning to their place of birth, often late in life. A love for your homeland is good right? Also, as in the Woody Harrelson documentary ‘Kiss the Ground’ it refers to, or at least acknowledges positive climate change activism.
 

But what about Nationalism? What about coveting someone else’s land and wanting it for yourself? I’ve had this stuff with me since writing the song lyric, so I guess making the work was inevitable.

 

The work is a Colossal Figure (head) kneeling and kissing the ground though much abstracted and doubt it's visible to most.

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