Civilised, democratic society depends on freedom of thought and movement, non discrimination of any sort and the actions of government to protect human rights. Against that background I have been challenged by the notion of barriers preventing these conditions from prevailing. They come in many forms: political, physical, legal, moral and psychological. They are mainly experienced as class, gender, racial, material deprivation, educational, religious and political and are, sadly, global.
My personal experience of them is varied. From rabid anti Semitism at primary school, to a lack of freedom of expression when living in Iran and Singapore and from seeing the many barriers to peace during the Northern Ireland Peace talks to walking the walls in Berlin and Israel. Perhaps the biggest and most iniquitous barriers of all are those I saw faced by people and nations at the bottom of the wealth, health and education gaps whether in the USA, India, Sudan or Brazil.
Becoming an artist has given me a new way of expressing my anger and frustration at such barriers and aided my determination to help rid the world of them. The examples of Doris Salcedo, notably with “Shibboleth”, New Zealander Colin McCahon in his “Gate” series on political and social barriers and Rita Donagh’s work on Northern Ireland together with Luc Tuyman’s paintings on the Holocaust and the Congo serve to illustrate the importance of the artist as a political force.