Death and His Manservant

I don’t particularly think of myself as a surrealist. When there are odd juxtapositions in my work they are normally planned and programmatic. Purposeful. This work though has its origins in accident. I broke a favourite cup a few years ago, trying to do six things at once as usual and the coffee stained the floor of the space I was using as a studio in those times. For some reason I was moved to trace around the outline of the stain and of a fragment of the broken cup. I stashed the drawing and it has moved countries with me twice. At some point I drew a brutish face beneath the ‘hat’ and, seeing a shambolic, shameful hooded figure I added two walking sticks to prop it up. I stashed it again and in the empty warehouse of my brain that shambolic figure became death. Sluggish and inept, unable to get about without help from its thuggish supporter it seemed obvious as this year ground on that I would locate this hideous pair in Gaza against a backdrop of shattered building and buried children. Death the occupation, his manservant the western capitalist powers which fund and arm it. I’d normally shy away from spelling these things out but nothing about this is normal, is it? In the first iteration Death was dressed in grey but I made a second pass, putting death in imperial purple. Empire is death.