This piece has been one of the most popular in my current exhibition of the Labels Series in Teignmouth. I used part of the cardboard box which came with a six bottle pack of Mexican beer as a starting point for this mixed media piece. The layering of acrylic is typical of the 65 works I completed in the series and adds texture and depth to the image. Though the piece seems quite simple, with a limited pallet and obscured central motif, it is perhaps made more attractive in the way that the composition evokes the spirit of Mexican art, with the day of the dead sculls with which we are familiar. Abstract pieces such as this have a responsibility to evoke feelings via their associations, and to provide a visual language which is rich and informative. It still remains that to make a work successful and poignant, the artist has to use the primal elements with great care and consideration; indeed any work of art is subject to the same underlying criteria, otherwise, ( however admirable the application of skill and technique) the work will inevitably fail and be assessed as essentially shallow and mediocre in its ability to access the artistic sensitivities of the viewer.
During the course of the exhibition so far I have met a public who have fully embraced the aims which I have strived for, an awakening of the visual imagination, to meet the challenge of indivuality in the face of a world which constantly tells us ( without any substance ) that we are inherently blinkered.