If I’m honest. I never thought I’d make it to my half century. I imagined the long shadow cast by the reaper over much of my life, would have caught up with me by now.
Twenty years ago, I might have invited it to.
Ah, the nihilism and self-destruction of callow youth eh?
Still, I made it regardless, far happier, blessed and fortunate than any other dauber from the back jiggers of Liverpool might have reason to hope for.
Hindsight has also provided me the knowledge that as much as times change, some things remain the same. For myself, it’s been that unrelenting need to make art.
Which is why I thought it might be quite nice to put together a little video retrospective of work from the 70’s to present day. Also notable I suppose, is that for the very first time (and possibly the last) it includes a little musical accompaniment composed and performed by myself throughout.
Looking back over the body of my work these last few weeks, it’s been interesting to note that regardless of any evolution in style or technique, there’s been a common thread through my work that has remained constant: those same niggling questions of mortality, and it could be a coping mechanism for the ‘comprehensible darkness’ as Jung called it, or simply because I am ‘still a kid at heart’ as my wife-Lani says, but I can’t deny the almost neurotic obsession that has been there from childhood scrawl to sprawling canvas.
I imagine it will be that way until the darkness swallows me.
