The four Civil Servant Values: Honesty, Integrity, Impartiality and Objectivity in Colour and Braille. Acrylic on canvas 90x90cm -London, February 2011 How to turn an ART competition in a joke? The answer is the Jury simply disregarded the theme and rules. The jury included a qualified model of a celebrity painter. This model evidently got 'ART' qualifications during modelling. Also, the well-known Sir Gus O'Donnel, high in Civil Service. I do not remember the third person in the jury. The three final works were: 1- 'Honesty', a name taken from the theme to name a sculpture of a soldier 2- An abstract painting, decorative, called 'RED', and 3- The work below. 'RED' won! And 'Honesty' for a soldier? It is like fitting Spitfire wings in a Hurricane body. I knew in Africa more honesty than this, many children named 'Not Wanted'. Any way, we all can evaluate if 'RED' , despite its qualities, has anything to do with the original theme. Let me repeat: Honesty? Integrity? Impartiality? Objectivity? My Submission in writing
It was a difficult theme, true! It took me long time to think about the work, how to address it, mainly what to do to stop this work becoming a SLOGAN of some Labour Party Marijuana Leftist. In a strong way the theme seemed to have its roots in 'Stalinism'. So, how to represent Civil Servants, people, and mainly those they serve, also people? For me, no doubt, only the use of personal pronouns in a quasi graphic representation could give a sense of who was more important or not. The all idea of the THEME kept me thinking about STALIN's ideas, praxis and all the fear he caused. A common tactic of those ideas was to create a big DEBT, at all levels, so people would have to believe they were owing all to the GREAT LEADER, and then, forever, they would have to pay all back to HIM, many times with their own life. In our case, torture and death is not an issue, but still we owe billions to the world and we are called now to hate all those 'cuts'! I remember it was a LABOUR brain controlling and regulating all the BANKS' . In his name someone led this ideological art competition, no doubt a joke before the ultimate joke, but things evolved. The JURY, by not respecting the theme, discarding it, clearly not respecting all the artists who submitted their works under the theme, brought at least some sense to 'art' and 'life', bringing back the old British sense usually called 'Common'. It means RED won out of Democracy, not bad!