Slow Death Pay, 2022
Oil, acrylic, charcoal on canvas, 60 x 50 cm
Artist note
“I love that paint has memory. It’s a great recorder of actions; of energy transfer from the arm to the hand, from the brush to the canvas. Here, perhaps more so than any of my other paintings, that is strikingly apparent. I painted this in my spare bedroom before I had a studio. The paint of course was shot way beyond the canvas, the marks on the walls are still there a year later.
The title, Slow Death Pay, comes from a conversation with a friend. We were talking about our desk jobs, how we’d love to have jobs that were more active but feel stuck because our experience doesn’t translate elsewhere. I thought of danger pay, the idea or myth that risk of death or injury is somehow compensated for. And then it hit me that our ’danger’, as sedentary workers tethered to our desks for hours on end, is that of a slow death.
The frustration of feeling stuck and the pent-up energy of the desk worker is perfectly captured here. And so it was, Slow Death Pay, a painting of frustration and transference of energy.”