Colour and Protest - my new series of paintings
I care about the environment and I am not alone in this as I know many people do too. My new series of paintings are a response to my experience of protest and marches this summer. It has been very interesting from an artist point of view to follow climate protest marches over this last summer and just as interesting to see what the organisers would arrange and encourage to present a collective of people in a visual way. My latest series then focuses on calls to action and the use of colour.
Taking part in a couple of marches was interesting enough but I then delved into other protests around the world; Hong Kong and then Barcelona airport. It seemed that this summer protests were on the rise (or perhaps because I was looking out for them). Discovering that the Hong Kong riots used blue dye in water canons streamed onto protestors and the streets. The aim is to tag protestors so they can be identified easily. There is also the coloured ribbons worn by protestors on their wrists. Yellow stands for supporting the movement, blue denotes condemning the Police at the start of the protest when they attacked many protestors. Other colours have been added and some wear more than one ribbon.
When I attended a climate protest march back in the summer we ended up outside of the Labour Conference to draw attention to the conference about climate action that is desperately needed. The organisers released a red smoke from a lighthouse which gave an impending very gloomy global climate shipping forecast, red billowed up and down Brighton sea front.
These experiences started to flow around in my mind for a while but it is incredibly hard to condense and create new. I hit lots of stumbling blocks but then started to get interested in the call to action written on placards or in the social media phrases such as 'If not Now, When?', 'We are All Crew' and one that me and my friend are particularly fond of 'Love and Rage'.
Feeling passionate about climate change is an ongoing theme that I hope more people will be involved with. My personal take for wanting to attend the marches stemmed from feeling frustrated about a variety of things I feel need to change to keep our world a healthy and beautiful place, all of this will take time, action and hope.
If Not Now, When?
Acrylic on Paper, 2019