utmost respect 

2016 Oil on Italian Linen 120x100cm

Vincent Art Prize 2018, Finalist
Mosman Art Prize 2018, Finalist

When Napoleon’s army used the Sphinx’s nose for cannon practice, was it because there were no other convenient targets handy? Or were there greater motives at play? 

Destruction of art for political purposes is not a new thing. But now, surely, as civilised and enlightened citizens of the world, we are beyond all that. And yet, and yet... ISIS destroyed Roman artefacts in Syria, the Taliban blew up the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan and the Americans toppled the Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad. 

Not the same? Because they are the bad guys?

When you step back and ignore the politics, all are still work of art, symbolic of their environment, destroyed for a temporal ideological agenda. 

And yet here’s the curious thing. Psychologically the sentiment between the people who build monuments and those who destroy them, is the same. It’s about validation and leaving a mark. Some say it with beauty, others with destroying beauty.  

All trying to say: Here I am. I have existed.