‘Solace of a Marionette’

Oil + Acrylic on un-stretched Canvas

18 x 24 Inches

SOLD

March 2020

I started painting ‘Solace of a Marionette’ at the start of this pandemic, during the first lock down when we really had no idea as to how this year was about to unravel. Having not yet predicted how bad or how long this pandemic was about to hit us, I had really started to embrace having so much time to be able to truly focus on things I care most about. It also meant I was able to revise where my priorities lie. As someone who’s spent most of my life trying to navigate through the music industry I found, ironically, it's a lot less about music than it is about all the more superficial, materialistic aspects. With people constantly obsessing over your appearance, your online persona and who you associate yourself with. I’ve always struggled with this side of the industry and have felt, for a long time like I was losing myself in order to fulfil an idea or perception of me that was never really mine to start with. Feeling a lack of control, while having to constantly display/showcase a highlight reel of my life was starting to really make me feel helpless lie, like a doll or Marionette who’s held under their owners control constantly being pulled at and manipulated/pushed around and I found myself becoming more and more withdrawn, retreating deeper into an introverted way of being and distancing myself from the disingenuity and greed of the industry.

Spending more and more of my time sheltered from the rest of the world creating my own realm to create and exist in without the constraints of everyone else’s opinions. So I guess in a way I had already adjusted to a life not so distant from quarantine and having been blessed to not be in some of the really uncertain and unnerving positions I know a lot of people were thrown into. I was actually able to appreciate this time of solitude and this became the main influence for this piece and its title.