This is a shot of the work in progress for Leokadia.
Leokadia: a Slave of the Soviet Union
At one stage, the painting ws made up of three canvasses nailed crudely together.
It's now a third of the size and is heavily textured.
Materials: canvas, paper, acrylic, masking tape, iron, charcoal, tea and PVA.
Size: 39cm x 100cm x 2cm
The Last Train to Hell.
Unlike my Mother, milions went on a one-way train journey to enslavement and death. Conditions on the cattle trucks were appalling with between 30 and 50 people crammed together. It's hard to believe that this happened in the middle of the 20th Cemtury, in so-called "civilised" Europe.
Materials: Canvas, acrylic, charcoal, blood, tea, coffee and PVA.
Size: 90cm x 90cm x 2cm
From Lust to Dust.
The painting depicts the crushed bodies of a mother and baby in Syria, in Iraq, in Darfur, in countless wars... with soldiers' boot prints across their bodies. The baby is wrapped in an old United Nations hessian food sack.
The same boot prints depicted on the painting are sunk into the frame, which is made of sand.
Oils, acrylic, blood and hessian on canvas, with sand and PVA on wood.
6 ft. 6 in. x 4 ft. (198cm x 122cm x 10cm)
The Chattel
Words fail me. Mercifully, many wars, such as WW1, were waged primarily between men, however, increasingly they involve innocent civilians: women and children. It's wrong, very wrong.
Acrylic, blood, PVA and glass on canvas
3 ft. 3 in. x 3 ft. 3 in. x 1.5 in. (99cm x 99cm x 4cm)
The Lost Boy
This painting depicts a slave, a child labourer, staring at our world through a shop window. Is there a sale on? Or is he, like any other commodity, for sale?
The integral frame is made of over 200 actual Coke and beer tin cans stapled and glued to a wood frame. The cans represent items of our throw-away society, which the poor use for basic survival.
Acrylic, oils, canvas, PVA and printing plates. The integral frame is made of over 200 actual Coke and beer tin cans on a wood frame.
3 ft. 9” in. x 6 ft. 7 in. x 3 in. (117cm x 200cm x 7.5cm)
The Heart of My Darkness
This painting/collage depicts my darkest fears in my childhood. That’s a photo of me as a schoolboy, a copy of my Rhodesian Provisional Restriction Notice...
Acrylic, oils, blood, photoprints and PVA on canvas.
2 ft. 4 in. x 3 in. x 1 in. (71cm x 91cm x 2.5cm)
Slaves VI
This depicts slaves as dehumanized forms that appear to be made of wood; to reflect the fact that they were treated like cargo, not human beings.
Card, paper, linen, wood, pencil, acrylic, PVA.
65cm x 47cm x 0.5cm
The Slave
This painting was originally life size and depicted two slaves bound together by one hand and one foot.
I stored it in the garage and damp and frost destroyed one half. All that remains if half of the strong and serene man. I didn't realise it at the time, but his face is based on a guy I used to know many years ago in Zambia.
Ironically, the artwork is a survivor
Human Cargo
It’s estimated that 15 million Africans were transported to the Americas between 1540 and 1850. To maximize their profits slave merchants crammed as many slaves as they could on their ships.
This is the latest in the series and depicts 45 slaves. The slaves are wooden art mannequins to reflect the fact that slaves were treated like timber, like cargo, not human beings. Each slave figure measures 30cm x 8cm x 3cm.
Materials: wood, acrylic, plastic and PVA.
Size: 173cm x 135cm x 7.5cm
BARCODE
Acrylic and oil on canvas.
3’11 ½ ” x 2’ 6” x 1”(90cm x 60cm 2.5cm).
