Artist Statement:

Building-helmet, 2010; oil, gloss and pen on canvas; 100cm x100cm

The building-helmets are at the beginning of a larger, ongoing project concerned with the individual in the city (in particular my city, London). I do not think that the relationship between the individual and the city is ambivalent, but one that can restrict the natural expression of the individual if under-valued. George Simmel’s examination into the scope for the maintenance of independence and individuality against the sovereign powers of society has been fundamental to the development of my images.

The psycho-geography of urban living, where you become the place and the place becomes you is also central to this painting. A building, such as a high-rise, is a synecdoche for the city as a whole. By finding images from the media and internet, or taking photographs of people that I know, I then attach a building to their head. I hope by doing this to draw attention to how the city can change us, in the same way we create it.

By presenting the building as an involuntary growth from the head or a hat – a piece of clothing – I wanted to allude to the habitual reliance city-dwellers have on it, from schools, to office blocks and city flats. The city has the capacity to shape us, just as we create it. It can be the great liberator of our ambitions and aspirations but if it is not acknowledged and resisted at times, it can also be the vehicle for ones feelings of in-effect on the world.

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TALKING CITY is Anna Francis’ Longhouse Guest Editor project, for March 2010.

Click here to go to the project page.