I’m not exactly sure why but lately I’ve been thinking a great deal about how everything around us is so fragile or is it? Sometimes it feels or advertising wants us to believe that the course of history can be changed by simply crossing the street, buying cigarettes or not buying drinking water.
As I wander the streets of London I sometimes try to imagine how my actions would alter the histories of others. What if I randomly stopped someone to talk and by doing so make them miss their train. Do I change their history? Possibly but maybe not significantly. On the other hand if I randomly stop someone to talk and give them a hundred pounds then the chances of my changing their history increases. But then I’m not really in a position to start giving out a hundred pounds to satisfy my wondering.
I have though put some of these thoughts onto canvas. I wondered how could I represent the fragile sense we all feel in a simple painting? I wanted feelings that everyone knew and could understand. I wanted to convey the possibility of dramatic change with a simple gesture.
Change, I’m feeling is like millions of tons of water held back by a glass damn. We’re surrounded by it, we see it, we feel it, we drink it but ultimately do we control it? If we lived in a world where all this emotion was pinned up inside would we let it free or for the ease and comfort of it all just keep it behind its glass?
I honestly don’t know. It’s something I was just thinking about. Fragile change in fragile lives.