Remembrance Painting

This painting started life as a remembrance for a particular person lost in the Mediterranean Sea, bu the more I thought about it the more it became a remembrance of all those lost at sea. Painted using the universal pigment ochre, pigments which have been used by all people across all time, and sit in my paintings referencing the human, overlaid with French ultramarine. Traditional ultramarine was traded along the trading routes from Afghanistan in the Middle East through across the silk routes and the Mediterranean into Europe, across Europe and into the UK across the Chanel. The same routes used currently by refugees and asylum seekers, people migrating along the old trading routes. People seeking refuge and bringing with them culture and foods and all kinds of skills and knowledge to share within their new communities. The enriching nature of migration is often under represented in contemporary culture, and these paintings in this group are a song to that. To the capacity to create a refuge, and to the joy of sharing in cultural richness that comes from connection.