'LOOKING INTO THE EYE OF HISTORY'

'LOOKING INTO THE EYE OF HISTORY'

Something remarkable is happening all over the world.....the 'unpicking of history'. In the U.K, the toppling over of the Edward Colston statue has been hugely symbolic; akin to a long, pent up exhalation. Its giving way to much debate and discussion about the larger connotations. Colston was an English merchant, Tory politician, Slave trader & conveniently oh - ever so conveniently a philanthropist; an embodiment of the very Bedrock of British imperialism, window dressed as altruism. Remarkable collective self realizations are taking place everywhere....and its not just 'us against them'. There seems an accumulated need for the West to atone for their bloody history; this cathartic need is coming from all races - white, black and brown. A healthy future requires the detoxing of our past demons, whilst remaining present in the existential NOW.

The painting is a composition of layered history; there is no background or foreground. The sacred eye of the cow is also the eye of the Queen, who happens to be the (unelected) sovereign head of state. Her third eye is represented by the eye of time - the Big Ben clock on the Houses of Parliament. Mohandas Gandhi is relegated to being a postage stamp. The Pound Sterling currency note denotes wealth (afterall, the first Bank was in London, on the embankment of river Thames); British ships signalling maritime prowess and colonialism thus. The seated children are our future. Its really a flattened moment; a 'leela' of the compression of many ages....