Aren’t we all?

I painted an India series after travelling there with my daughter Kat. We spent our time in the remote Eastern Tribal States near Burma, China, Tibet, Bhutan, and Bangladesh seeing only three other westerners in three weeks. I was fascinated by the never-ending battle between chaos and order, and hope this series reflects this. This painting lives above my bed and has for a long while, but like my children, it is ready to go on its own adventure.

If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times – don’t bring up politics… especially in the voting queue…. Fuck

Humans are wanderers. Humans are tribal It’s nice when the joining of the two works. I hope it does here. I think it will.

Perhaps you, like me, find it difficult to find a girl, but less difficult to find a bird.

Most things are more complicated than you think. Or maybe most things are more simple, but some people think too much. Whatever, this is a fish I bought. I X-rayed it in the swimming pool I built for it. This is what is inside it. His name is Simpleton, which is a running joke between us. He is both complex and happy. We talk philosophy and he does my books.

In the queue outside BASS at North Terrace there was a heady mix of excitement and tension. Would they get tickets to the concert? If only prayers that morning hadn’t been extended by 30 minutes – yet perhaps their prayers themselves would be answered, perhaps even to the mosh pit.

Stained glass in places of worship can be mesmerising – the colour and the imagery. I didn’t think this at boarding school, a captive in chapel several times a week, two services on Sunday. I would sneak in the sports pages of the Sunday Mail to read and long for the day I’d be free of it all. I’m glad I can appreciate it not just from an aesthetic point of view but also the storytelling, and the motivation of the telling. I choose to see this painting as part of the evolution of rock paintings and religion, with introduction of colour. It’s not a clear story that it tells, thankfully. Also, thankfully, it is not pious or terrifying, or claiming to know an absolute truth. To me it being abstract gives a both complex and simple, and honest representation of grappling with the meaning of life.

To me the people in the left and right paintings look concerned. They look anxious and troubled, ill at ease. They look somewhat guilty and helpless, despite somewhere inside knowing they have tried almost as best they can.

Somewhere inside of us, blatant or latent, we know it’s our responsibility to leave the world in a better state for the next generation. As much as we may try to do our own bit we, or most of us, are subject to feeling overwhelmed by the lack of control for the whole world, and quite probably irrationally, we carry a burden. This is what we sign up for in becoming a parent, be it a parent of children or a parent of the world.

The middle painting, to me, provides some relief, some perspective and some hope. The beasts and babies represent nature. There is a loving mother and an alternative proud and caring father. The fact that we do care and worry so much may mean that we will be seen as the generation amongst which change finally began, and that the baton is put into good hands.

The two tribes meet, at first warily. It works out well, I think. Currently hung vertically.

Why are dull people called squares? I think that here, by and large, the square faced people look engaging, fun, smart, of good values. The round faced people are ok also, but I’d be happy to hang out with the squares. Currently hung vertically