Its a jungle out there Painting

This painting is a response to thoughts Ive been having considering global migration. As an Australian, now living in Scotland, (born of British immigrants), I often consider the ease of which I can travel between hemispheres, the good fortune of being able to travel of my own free will. Whilst I was on a trip through central Australia, the Calais refugee crisis was unfolding; thousands of desperate people, fleeing their homelands, attempting terrifying journeys across dark waters, to be squeezed into a camp (‘the Jungle’) teetering on the edge of two countries. It seems hard to comprehend the struggles of the outside world when enveloped in the immense vastness of the Australian outback. The size of the country is overwhelming, yet it still has the same struggles of land rights, borders and identity. These problems are created not from the land itself, but by people and settlement. Over time the geological landscape changes little but the borders and how we define the land is a construct made by us. The landscape remains (relatively) the same - we are just passing through at varying intervals. As the planet responds to global warming, sea levels rise and resources are challenged, people will continue to move across the planet as always, the tide of migration forever in flux. The painting is subtly multi coloured with some small texture, particularly in the horizontal lines. It is unframed & canvas stretched on good quality stretchers.