PAINTING OVER THE CRACKS

LOCATION

COREY HELFORD GALLERY, LOS ANGELES, USA

DATE:

AUGUST , 2022

Yes yes, I’m aware the actual expression is to “paper over the cracks” but for obvious reasons, painting felt more appropriate to me and to this show - with nearly one hundred murals under my belt I’ve spent my fair share of time painting over real cracks in real walls. If you haven’t heard the expression before it essentially refers to the act of ignoring or hiding an issue in both the literal and metaphorical sense - it’s putting on a brave face and pretending that “the issue” doesn’t really exist. After living through an unprecedented, historical moment in time that saw us globally locked down as a result of the pandemic, I think we’ve witnessed our fair share of “cracks” appearing across society and culture alike, some fresh and some older and deeper than before. In many of these cases it felt like the approach was to apply a big dollop of metaphorical paint to cover them up, only for the cracks to reappear slightly worse further down the line. This show and body of work is a collection of my own personal observations and feelings from the last couple of years. My intention is not a love-letter to what we have lost and nor is it a celebration of the change that was catalysed by the pandemic, because, let’s face it, there’s been good and bad in both. Rather, it’s a visual acknowledgement of the altered society in which we now find ourselves and which we must strive to make better.

Much of this show was dedicated to relationships, not just in the romantic sense but also to ourselves - our memories, things and experiences and how they’ve changed over the course of the last two years. Whether by choice or by necessity, the act of seeing our loved ones through the lens of a camera phone instead of face to face has become second nature to many, as we rely more heavily on the limits defined by technology to keep us connected. Through the likes of Face Time and Zoom, it has fast become a world full of visual stimulation, yet gradually lacking in physical interaction, as it ebbs away, fading like a fond memory. When left to our own devices on the other hand (pun intended), we seem to have slipped further down the rabbit hole of nostalgia, seeking the comfort of the familiar, far away from pandemic pandemonium. In both cases it seems as if we’ve traded a grasp of reality in favour of straight forward simplicity. We choose to look at what our screens show us rather than to look up at the big-bad post-lockdown world in which we find ourselves.