Food + Factory

The following is an image of a painting that I’d made for a May Day?áart exhibition a few years back. I was thinking about the industrialisation of farming, and the untold suffering that migrant (and non-migrant) farm workers suffer so that we can be fed cheaply.

Just a couple of technical details for those painters out there… It’s painted on paper, with oils. To make that work I gessoed the paper first. The original painting is only about 4″ tall! As I pretty much always paint with large brushes, I made small details by adding paint and then wiping away with a rag and my fingernail.

I’ve always had an urge to make something like a painted comic, and this is an example of that urge coming to fruition.?áIt is rare for me to paint something?áthat is?áovertly political. Normally my stuff veers towards dreamy expressions?áof landscape, poetry, and nature. I do think of deeper things than simply visual expression when painting, however,?áthese thoughts are sheathed within layers of paint… hidden and waiting to be discovered.