‘Le Petit Prince’

Oil + Acrylic on three pieces of Un-stretched Canvas

54 x 24 inches

‘Le Petit Prince’ -

The title of this piece is inspired by the French classic ‘Le Petit Prince’ a fictional children’s novel that narrates the journey of a little prince from an asteroid who travels from planet to planet in search of a cure to his loneliness and meaning to his life back on his asteroid. Along his journey he meets different characters that through their faults and rigid adult ways, all manage to leave the little prince with a new thought. With each character having become completely and grossly consumed with the frivoulsnous of their own vanity, greed and power. This story shines a light on human problems of the modern age as the little prince confronts some of the vices that rule us and each of the characters he meets along the way. It is only when he meets the fox that he realises without someone or something to love and care for and without the knowledge or experience of understanding what it is to truly nurture something as it grows, life has little meaning and it’s the lack of all of these things that drove those people he met to lose all sense and direction.
The beauty of this story is that there are so many morals and perspectives to unravel as you follow the little prince on his journey to enlightenment. Different people or different temperaments can lead you down an individual route to alternative meanings. I really love that openness and space for freedom of creative interpretation and I often find myself narrating the story of the journeys we take in life through my art. Using the characters as guides and story tellers and symbolism as clues or signs to point you towards whichever meaning you find beneath its surface but leaving it open enough for each person to write/see their own journey within it. With this piece I hoped to capture/ inspire many different thoughts or narratives. With the boy I tried to capture the duality of his strength with the beauty of his naivety/innocence. Having been inspired not only by the little prince in the story but also a little boy I met a long time ago when I was fortunate enough to spend time with some aboriginals in Australia. This little boy, Daniel was about 6 when I met him and though I was also just a kid, experiencing what the world was like through his and his families eyes, that had been so unspoiled by the modern world, was an experience I will never forget. Daniel and his sister Yasmin who was slightly older, were so confident and unbound by the shallow and superficial ways of the world as we live by it, that they remind me of the little prince and his reaction to the adults he met and their tainted ways. In some ways, I feel as though, just as the little prince grappled to understand the ways of the adults and thought them strange so must’ve Daniel and his sister meeting me and how confused or repulsed they would’ve been to see how a lot of people live in the western world with a lack of purpose, spirituality or love and empathy towards others and our earth. I think this is what makes this story so relevant, when you look at the state of our planet now from the state of our politics to the constant natural disasters, the poverty crisis and endless wars. It seems as though we have lost all sense of direction and purpose like the characters within this novel and by losing sight of what truly matters we hurt not only ourselves but the earth we live in.