It isn’t often that I use my blog to express political opinions. After all, its primary purpose is to share with readers something about my life as an artist, and the ways in which my art relates to other aspects of my life. Perhaps as a result of my reticence you might have formed the opinion that politics doesn’t matter very much to me. Actually, this is far from being the case. I can’t refrain today from letting loose with a political comment.
In case you haven’t picked it up (and if you don’t live in Europe you could be forgiven for not following in intimate detail the sorry story of the attempt of the UK government to leave the European Union) Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, commented today that a special place in Hell ought to be reserved for the British politicians who initiated the process of withdrawal without “the sketchiest idea” about how that might be achieved. All kinds of people here have been huffing and puffing with indignation at his remark, but it is right on the ball. The impasse into which negotiations have been driven was completely foreseeable, given the way the processes was initiated. Thousands upon thousands of man-hours have been wasted and probably billions of euros on the pursuit of a vague notion that had never been considered as a concrete political objective. Our former Prime Minister David Cameron thought that that he would win the referendum on withdrawal, and that no concrete planning for an alternative was necessary. The result is currently a political train crash, and will probably end up as an economic one too. Tusk is absolutely on the ball, and I salute his honesty in steeping outside the normal polite euphemisms of diplomatic discourse and telling it how it is.
Actually, this is not entirely unrelated to art, despite appearances to the contrary. I think that what I am looking for artistically at the moment is some way of putting into visual form something of the sense of despair I feel about our current situation. Perhaps that is more than I am capable of. I’ve never tried before to paint the Apocalypse.