Je suis Charlie: four points of a compass (a view of the world)

Bob Georgeson, East, 2015, Digital print

Bob Georgeson, West, 2015, Digital print

Bob Georgeson, North, 2015, Digital print

Bob Georgeson, South, 2015, Digital print

Bob Georgeson, Four points of a compass, 2015, Digital print

Happy New Year! Not. Last year ends with mindless violence in Martin Place in Sydney. This year begins with it in Paris. These photos seem to sum up the situation. I have generally avoided politics in my art and on this blog (Twitter is a different matter if you want to follow me). There have been a few exceptions: the Worlds in Collision series and the Why is this happening? video to name two, but it does raise the question of whether there has been (or perhaps should be) a link between politics and art, and ultimately what purpose that might serve. And do artists have a responsibility as the eyes of the world to address the socio-political situations that we find ourselves in?

I don't have an answer for this any more than I have a solution to the Islamic problem, or any other issue you choose to pull out of the hat. What I do know is that silence and a reluctance to, or fear of speaking out against injustice will always play into the hands of the perpetrators. And so we set the tone for the year ahead...

Gateway

Bob Georgeson, Gateway, 2014, Digital print

...to 2015 perhaps?

The future

One of my favourite examples of Australian architecture. The silo and flour mill at Tocumwal on the Murray River in New South Wales. A premonition of the year ahead?

3 wise men

Outlet

Bob Georgeson, Outlet, 2014, Photography

Grid

Bob Georgeson, Grid, 2014, Mixed media

doin' me head in...

I stopped counting after about 15000 kilometres on the road. The car was still going...I think I was driving, home or away was getting increasingly hard to tell.You go through good towns, and you go through those that don't feel so good, but wherever I went I always felt at home. It is only in the cities that I start to feel alienated. There is always a romanticism about driving down a country road exploring new territory. At the same time one can only marvel, and at times, cringe at land use and our desire and capacity to alter the landscape. The above pic is in Yeoval, a small settlement on the road between Wellington and Parkes. Someone somewhere along the way had decided to create a sculpture park and a 'benefactor' had kindly donated this bronze split 'portrait' of Henry Moore. Considering Moore's oeuvre all one could do was wonder why?

Needless to say with all the travelling this year time in the studio has been infrequent and disjointed at the best of times. The blog has been sadly neglected, collaborations come and go, being focused on particular projects has remained elusive, and yet on occasion I think I have managed to produce my best work, certainly in video anyway, and my photomedia work has seen a gradual shift from the theme of sex and death (no doubt disappointing some of my audience) to architectural decay, disorder and disintegration.

So, a year of contrast in a land of contrasts. The tunnel below is on the freeway heading east from Adelaide, town of my birth but a long way from where I live today. And below that is Bunjil, creation spirit depicted in aboriginal rock art from near the Grampians in south western Victoria. The two pics kinda summed up the situation. Massive engineering works so I can get home faster, and a timeless painting from a race who no longer have their home. I sit somewhere in between scratching me head...