Child Bride
- oil on canvas (1993)
- 44" x 36"
- US$3,300***
- Any artist is faced with the dilemma of how to say what they want to say. With passion, yes - but will it be, say, in anger or with love? Personally I've been influenced by the poet Erich Maria Rilke, who believed that the poet's task is to praise. The job turns out to be more difficult than it appears. What is there to praise when what you love is being neglected, destroyed or undermined? A young artist friend once looked at my paintings and, in his view, to express my real feelings I should have painted jagged red X's across some of them. Maybe he's right. But I've chosen Rilke's dictum and I'm sticking with it the best I can. One way around the dilemma is to add the dimension of mystery. Life is large, huge, immense. I witness a tiny portion of it. If I can somehow hint at its full richness, then my own experience of it is put into perspective.
- A painting that presented me with the great difficulty was "The Child Bride". I painted it around ten years ago after I read about a particular incident in the papers. A middle-aged European male had been arrested when he stepped off the plane in his native country after having visited Thailand. He had brought with him a twelve-year old child whom he claimed to have married. The article went on to comment that it was common practice for foreigners to avail themselves of young children in economically vulnerable countries.
- Well, I just had to express my outrage. But how? Especially if keeping to Rilke's dictum. First of all, I needed to portray the enormous power difference between a European male and an Asian child. That accomplishes the expression of outrage. Then I set the two against a brilliant background suggesting our globe, and I surrounded them with the troubled but silent faces of four Buddhas. (A Korean version.) I don't, of course, mean to imply that we are guiltless on this continent. Some of the wealthy purchasers of wives or services could well be North American.
- It's a painting I like, and my only regret is that it's not ten times bigger, because size, too, is an important element in expression. But then, I live in a house with few walls!
[Close this browser window when finished]