These works are some of the earliest works in my artistic practise that utilised drawing in a much more abstract way. Born out of experiments aimed at creating a sense of unfairness, a concept partly inspired by Michael Fried's analysis of Minimalism. They used negative space and a non realistic, impressionistic almost brutally naive style to create jarring, aggressive and acerbic selection of political critiques. The Grenfell Tower disaster had just taken place and the images of the tragedy had seared into my consciences. This brutal chaos caused by a cynical corporate malice, felt like Tory rule in fruition. Brexit, the mishandling of a migrant crisis, the bombing of Syria and the repression of the Black Lives Matter movement, made the oppressive authority of a coalition government under Theresa May and Arlene Forster of the D.U.P feel like a edifice that could only be evaluated through this style of art.

 

To create these pieces I worked fast, loosening my movements and using line to create form, continuously mapping surface areas, the blacks deepened, the faces often reworked until they were obliterated.  Many Pieces use structural marks, shapes like buildings, surfaces like concrete, great pillars and columns rise out the ground propping up tyrants. In some people are depicted as sheep, in others as screaming child like ghouls. There are themes that diverge out of the urban cages of 2016 Britain, two pieces pertain to the struggle at the time in America. With images of slaves ships and confederate statues forming a lattice of a timeline, stretching upwards built on the past. Another piece shows the beginnings of my struggle with my identity in the wake of the upheaval social standings and British patriotism so electric in this period. Figures inspired by Mussolini's Stadio Dei Marmi wrestle with themselves among rigid lines that mimic a marble quarry. These works form the foundation of my practise this reappraisal of my technique and the embrace of a more aggressive form of inquiry, as well as conceptually complex subjects are now the pillars of my Art.