Flowerfield

Flowerfield gestated for quite some time after several visits drawing in a  young friend’s  field on the Norfolk Broads. (Alfie’s company is called Burn Fen Flowers, and he grows seasonal flora and fauna for the London market. )

In part a celebration of the industry of Generation Z, these young people are in my painting literally tackling climate catastrophe head on and planting a much richer and more layered ecosystem in an area of the country known for its monoculture, specifically the production of potatoes.  As Alfie and his mates scurried around, I remember thinking… ‘if only their endeavours at a local and family level could be rolled out universally, we might have more of a chance to mitigate what’s coming to us with a vengeance.’ His patch was full of insects of all sorts, meshed together around his iridescent flowers. 

Although some of the ideas behind my work are steered by an impending sense of fear and doom for us as a species careering towards  extinction in the Anthropocene, as an artist I want  to  convey my sense of wonder witnessing what our edenic world can still conjure up around us. That thrilling feeling of breathing and being alive amongst all living things of Earth, is exacerbated by the current precariousness of it all, while some of  our myopic tyrannical male leaders, being so damaged themselves, are unable to revel in the love of living things, and only see the natural world as a commodity for exploitation. So I try and paint what is precious around me, as an antidote to and protest against the pillaging effects and selfishness of neoliberalism. - TH