Universal Privacy

The centre of the capital bristles with power like a massive building bristling with antennae. And yet the people with the power are just as vulnerable as the rest of us. I was thinking this only this afternoon as I popped in to do some paperwork in a large and busy building. I was actually thinking about it in the context of the artist's work, too. This is what is so strong about the art. It manages to show us both strength and vulnerability. A kind of lifeforce is acknowledged, and yet no rank is thrown. The fact nature is deployed so broadly in each piece is another asset - it places the human condition, the lives within the figures, into some kind of universal context, or perspective. Everyone is rushing about, especially down the corridors of power, in the world today. Sometimes we have to move in what in any sensible situation might be called too fast and yet important issues can be at stake and people have no choice sometimes but to move fast. What the artist gives us - in my humble yet provenly abiding opinion - is a rare opportunity to slow everything down, not to a halt but to a calm, without sucking out any of the work's strength or energy. It is rather like having life slowed down to what is probably its preferred speed. I know these are vague terms, but there is a genuine unsnatchability about the work. And when there is great purpose and limited time down these aforementioned corridors of power, in other words when public service meets limited time, and duty grasps idleness, sometimes flinging it aside, these people doing all this will often mean well but simply not have it within their gift to contemplate fully what it is they hope exists and therefore justifies their duty to keep some kind of peace. Well, the artist is proof that that peace, that very peace, in real terms, and without fake ribbons or bows, exists.