Sticky Rat .I Painting

This work was inspired by the Charles Booth's London Poverty Maps, a set of maps which plotted poverty in London at a street level at the turn of the 20th Century. I have been very interested in perceiving my place as a student in London, coming from a working class background I felt that investigating the wealth disparities in the city I now reside would be a great start. Residing in South London specifically has informed me of the great divide between places I would consider to be bountiful locales filled with diverse life and the monotonous and dreary grey streets in wealthier boroughs, commonly North of the river. The geographers that recorded the thicket of information for every street in London would code the streets based upon a tightly enforced colour palette. Yellow Ochre's were used to describe the wealthiest upper classes and in contrast, deep blues and black tones would articulate residents of a working or low class, commonly being painted as semi-criminal. This set of maps have been intrinsic to contextualising works I have created considering the wealth inequality I perceive, my mode of communicating this has been to reappropriate this colour palette to communicate my ideas considering the bourgeoise. Research into Gentrification has also informed my practise recently and in this work the tide of ever advancing gentrification is communicated through this jagged cartoonish iconography on the works right side. This piece was also informed by researching geographical diagrams of Hart Island, NY. An island of recent media attention due to its usage as a mass burial ground for Covid 19 related deaths. Previously this Island has also been utilized for prisoners or AIDS patients. Ideas upon the fragments of human life left on that island are communicated by the marker portion of this work which details fledgling deposition. I have inscribed contour lines and a compass in this piece as an ode to geographical drawings and the quotes "Sticky" and "Rat. I" were plucked from the maps of Hart Island, NY. Note the bands of contour lines are coded in Blue and Black, perhaps influenced by the discriminatorily categorized classes of these dead that have trickled down and influenced the very essence of the diagram.

Painting:Oil on Canvas

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:40 W x 40 H x 1.5 D in

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