Complete Collection Citizens and Wastrels

Citizens and Wastrels – All

Inspired by the city and its structures and architecture, its citizens and workers, its homeless and non-employed, these are pieces of work which return time and again to urban narratives. Like the strata of buildings and streets, the scenes behind the windows, the activities in the sewers, the relationships with the surrounding country side, the dissolving of day and night, the fluidity of time, and influenced by the times of Hogarth, Dore, Mayhew and Masereel, these prints comment on, observe and capture the complex stories of the city.

Laying down the Law in Lager Lane and Lifting the Spirits in Tonic Row.

Taking inspiration from William Hogarth’s commentary on the Gin Act in ‘Gin Lane’ and ‘Beer Street’, ‘Laying down the Law in Lager Lane’ and ‘Lifting the Spirits in Tonic Row’ reveal that the devil drink is still responsible for all sorts of horrors in the 21st century. Crimes committed, lives destroyed, corruption and cruelty visualised amidst a wealth of word play and commentary on contemporary consumerist society. The streetscape has sub texts and the legal terms are caustically captured with ‘caught house and court house’, ‘Helpum and Stingum’ and some very shady lawyers in wigs bend the law and their victims to obscene acts. Each window is a snapshot, each fallen body a sign of troubled times.

Gangsters

Inspired by film noir and the corruption of American cities, these frozen frames are like the camera angles for a film. The highs and lows of the gangsters’ life styles result in their eventual capture and undoing: from Contracted, Driven and Wacked to Busted. A separate portrait of a gangster inspired by the Sopranos is a postscript to the narrative.

Early hours of the morning

In night’s dark hours an underworld spreads its tentacles, transforming mischief into mayhem, and minor disputes into major confrontations, as bad deeds become evil.

Prisoners break out, drunks break in, judges play away, rats from the sewers cavort. Rules are broken under the noses of the guards who don’t see what is happening through the windows and behind the doors.

From skyline to gutter, the filth and the scum stealthily starts to throb with life as dawn breaks.

After Hours

Influenced by Paris nights and the paintings of Art Nouveau bars. In the dark corners corruption lurks. Drink and prostitutes go hand in hand.

Getting Weighed In

Politicians and gangsters – all are on the make: all are the same.

Weighing up the odds, weighing up on the scales of justice – but everything is corrupted and fiddled. The crane is fixed, the outcome is certain.

Population Control

Eternal debates about controlling the birth rate, by evil means and foul. Politicians spout messages of hatred. Border controls and gated communities. Climate warnings, deadly disease fears, no housing, more poverty and famine. Since the industrial Revolution there have been issues of migration and immigration. Fear of where the world is going.

Chase of Life

Raging bulls chase through the streets; men defiantly rolling up newspapers in vain attempts to defend themselves, not taking it seriously. Traditional festivals and cruel practices now are challenged; men are weak beside the animals who are seeking redress for centuries of abuse.

Time is just an illusion

‘Work for bones’ is the pitiful message. The tramp watches the world go by. The superior man is better than others, and the tramp turns to drink. ‘There is all the time in the world’ is the phrase, but is there time to save anything?