Remember to Water

In this painting, remember to water, you can see the fairly obvious destruction that came from, the pre, out of lockdown period where I ruined, ruined all of my, my paintings because there were too, kind of, pessimistic. But I've kept some of that here. And, and the parts that you can see that have been kept, uh, um, essentially leftover parts of what were, um, graffiti pieces that were on here.

Uh, initially there was a connection between, you know, the way that advertising and marketing appropriates, um, subcultures and content, and takes them out of context and kind of just abuses them and throws them away. And, you know, very miserable commentary on, on that world, which is why I got rid of it. But I kept some of the leftover bits of destroyed color that came through. And I think for me, my, my background, um, was, you know, taking up graffiti as something to do, you know, when I was a pretty, you know, lost and confused and, and miserable young person.

And so I have a challenging relationship with graffiti in the sense that, um, I got to do some really great creative stuff, and I got to find some peace in a lot of ways by not looking for the adventure and thrill side of graffiti, but finding…for me, I would find entirely the opposite. I would find the quiet places that gave me a chance to focus on the painting at night time, out…out in the open, out in the world, in the elements.

…and get, I guess a sense of, um, get a sense of flow really a little bit like, um, people who, who like their jobs and they experience a sense of flow or, or enjoyment through deep work.

That was my first experience of what, that type of enjoyment that comes from focus was like, and, um, there are clearly a lot of negative aspects of graffiti and I, didn't really fit in, in that type of culture, I guess.

It wasn't a good place for me from a developmental perspective. So, yeah, I have a, a rough, you know, not a great relationship, I guess, with that part of my, my past, here it's, it's sort of, you know, a lot like it is for me in real life in terms that, um, it keeps showing through, even though I've tried to hide it, you know, it is a real part of my, my history and, um, as much as I've tried to sort of escape it, and it's been a long time since I've been anything that you would consider active and, um, you know, to be clear, I have no, um, no particular standing of, of any note in that world.

So I mentioned it just because it is an activity that I did that had an impact on me, but I definitely didn't have any impact on, on that, um, on that culturally, I'm not an important person in that space or, you know, just in case there are any graffiti writers, real graffiti writers who stumble onto this.

That's, that's not why I mention it. Um, it's not because I think I have any, any standing, um, within that community or think that I'm important or anything like that, but it is, it is part of…part of me. I think what has grown out of that, and what you can see in this picture is, is, something that's, that's forward thinking and forward focused, about growth and even just the name of the painting, remember to water is kind of my own little, um, my own little prompt, I guess, in life, remember to keep, investing in yourself, investing in your ideas, spending time, giving yourself the opportunity to do things and make things.

And that's a choice, some people choose to do to do other things with that time. It's a reminder for me to, continue to, um, invest in making, invest in thinking, reading, you know, anything that will continue to help, , develop my thinking and, you know, develop my place in the world and a place for my family.