Stars and Tears
Behind the veil of fame and celebrity hides a darker side of humanity where indecency and power prey on aspirations and dreams.
These paintings are a reference to the MeToo and TimesUp movements.
The squares are metaphors for identity seals. Historically seals/chops were used for unique written identification. Devoid of recognizable identity marks, the squares are anonymous individual voices. They raise together to denounce and fight inequality and abuse. They form an ensemble, a support group, that can not be ignored anymore.
Stars and Tears 1
The overall Red colour scheme represents passion, anger and blood.
Here the identity seals break through the golden veil of abusing power represented by the top left and bottom right gilded corners.
This veil is also represented by a faintly visible under layer of metal leaves in the underpainting which has been scratched and covered by subsequent layers of paint.
Mixed Media on canvas, 100cm*40cm
Stars and Tears 2
In this painting the identity seals break through tormented skies, metaphor for the fact that often a blind eye is turned to abuse when associated with some sort of rewards. But those rewards come at a price with tears of gold. Metal specks applied loosely and unorganised are images of those tears which can surfaced at any time of any place.
Mixed Media on canvas, 80cm*30cm