Migration

These paintings are related to my large sculpture ‘Heart is Where the Home is’ as they’re concerned with some of the emotional and psychological experience of migration. They’re inspired by my great-grandparents arriving in London in the late 1800’s as Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe; by my own migration from England to New Zealand; and express some shared feeling with migrants and refugees generally.

All oils on canvas. Can hang from eyelets with/without dowel rod (supplied). NZD500 each.

In 2009, I made these paintings as stretched canvases 3ft x 4ft. They had the same titles and were about the same things. In 2020, I cut those canvases up and reorganised the pieces, adding small amounts of extra oil paint. I believe these versions work much better compositionally. They also say more about displacement and about putting pieces of lives back together differently. And they are part of my continuing quest to reuse objects or previous work for environmental reasons.