PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN
Woodcut
122x170cm
ENQUIRE
A ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ that was a direct copy of a sketchbook page I drew in the Brierley Hill Flats in the 1980s now seen through the lens of time.
This print page depicts a very dark epiphany where all around reality collapses back in on itself, whilst the young artist draws because that is the only certainty available. In the foreground a friend of Jamaican descent lies dead from an asthma attack after being chased by skin heads ,his inhaler dropped beside him. In the canal the white swans chase away the black swans in reference to the endemic racism of the area. A drunken man collapses whilst his dog eats his vomit . Slag heaps from former steel work furnaces make up this waste land that is now concreted over with high rise flats sprouting amongst the ruins industries now gone. The drug dealer uses his bike to cover more g while two men fight and another man pisses. On the bridge a couple kiss illuminated by a light that cuts into the darkness reminding us that amongst this epiphany of darkness the light is still able to shine.
This print page depicts a very dark epiphany where all around reality collapses back in on itself, whilst the young artist draws because that is the only certainty available. In the foreground a friend of Jamaican descent lies dead from an asthma attack after being chased by skin heads ,his inhaler dropped beside him. In the canal the white swans chase away the black swans in reference to the endemic racism of the area. A drunken man collapses whilst his dog eats his vomit . Slag heaps from former steel work furnaces make up this waste land that is now concreted over with high rise flats sprouting amongst the ruins industries now gone. The drug dealer uses his bike to cover more g while two men fight and another man pisses. On the bridge a couple kiss illuminated by a light that cuts into the darkness reminding us that amongst this epiphany of darkness the light is still able to shine.