OIL & WATER:

Shipwrecked on an island for the extreme mundane.
Clipped grass, cracked mac, sun bleached curb stone
concrete. Box buildings of red brick straight out of
the 1970’s, suck the life right out of you if your
boat runs aground on these rocks. Just off the motorway,
down a side road no one notices there’s a Sad little
Travel Lodge, a chocolate vending machine alone on
a linoleum sea, a solitary figure hunched over
two-fisted meat at the fast food vendors, smelling
of grease. No paths between anywhere, everything
built for cars, I cut a route from A to B & back
like a rebel explorer. Van drivers, caught
in the act of emptying their dogs in the bushes
cast guilty glances over shoulders as I photograph
road signs, attracted to their dynamism. Vibrant
colours, arrows, chevrons, circles, parallels &
cones. These are the elements of my first pallet,
the marks that lifted me as a youth from drowning
in a sea of grey & as I look back through my portfolio
I see these marks reoccurring. I’m still drawn to them,
sometimes hidden in the dance of brush strokes & scratches,
sometimes plucked direct off the street in curated objects
photographed in passing. They are as important to me now
as they ever where in balancing the grey clouds coalescing
between my ears that generate such restless noise it hurts,
marooned on this J.G. Ballard world.

(K)