Art Trail Exhibition, Brighton 2021
Context
Foreword:
The piece I was given (Rae Durgerian) evoked a sense or feeling of ‘protection’, probably accentuated by the prevailing C-19 situation of anxiety, fear and the need for ‘self- protection’.
Aesthetically, the stitching and pattern it presents made me think of chain mail and armour. I have interpreted this theme by placing four images together that individually represent or signify ‘protection’ or ‘defense’, and collectively a feeling of unease, anxiety and wariness – a feeling we have all been experiencing of each other in the socially distanced world we have recently inhabited.
Images explained (left to right)
TL
‘The Stone’ – image drawn from childhood memories of a recuring, potent dream (nightmare?) of the threat or danger of an advancing megalithic stone with eyes; probably incited by watching the children’s TV series ‘Children of the Stones’ in the 1970’s.
TR
‘The Tank’ – photograph of a WWI armoured tank vehicle. Physical representation of ‘protection’. The number designation is also synonymous with the prevalent role in our lives of statistics, counting numbers of infections and sadly deaths with C-19.
BL
‘The Body’ – photograph of a piece of orange peel. If the human lungs were laid out they would resemble this shape. Symbolic of the physical threat we are facing – the human lungs are the main route of infection of the virus into the body (breathing and inhaling); the skin of an orange protects the fruit or body within.
BR
‘Fear’ – drawing of a fictional being that represents the existential fear the virus has created; similar to the presentation of the ‘The Scream’ (1893) by the Expressionist Edvard Munch.
Phil Taylor April 2021