KITCHEN SINK REDEMPTION

yo! .. portrait of god.. innit!

 

long ago when I was a young boy..

I came home one evening..

from playing out in the snow..

in the winter darkness..

I was freezing cold and soaking wet..

my knees were black..

from the dye of the cheap black jeans I had on..

my mother sat me on the draining board..

in the kitchen..

and bathed me in the kitchen sink..

I thought of this much later in my studio..

at the general hospital..

in 1984..

I thought of painting a portrait of god..

I was younger then..

anyway..

I look at this painting now..

(above is not the finished painting)

or at least a jpg of it..

and what I see now is not a deity..

but a pope..

a figure at the base of a crucifixion..

a screaming pope..

WHERE'S THE SCREAM ?

well look at the face of this teddy bear..

not all screams are alike..

this one is more like a smile..

or a look..

it's a sunburst..

a grind..

a smirk and a chaos..

it's not an ever fixed mark..

it 's a moveable feast..

a great notion..

it's an anomaly a gap in time..

warped space..

I had used all the colours that I had available..

to make this odd..

unnatural..

cosmic..

different..

it's an ecstacy in paint..

NOBODY EXPECTS A HANGING

this painting was bought by Leeds schools art loan scheme in 1986.. 

and was on my page at artUK..

but that scheme has closed and the painting..

is awaiting adoption by the Leeds city art collection..

this has been going on for some years now..

so I sit here in the sink..

in the cold kitchen..

here in palookaville..

and it's beginning to feel like..

an eternity..