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Resilience | Inheritance | Playful Precision | Out Source | Political Papers | Travel Tales

2019 Political Papers (Summer Vines 4) 46x38cm

Summer Vines 4
2019
Acrylic on paper on canvas collage
46x38cm

 Summer Vines 3
2019
Acrylic on paper collage
46x38cm

Summer Vines 2
2019
Acrylic on paper collage
46x38cm

photography ©Benjamin Deakin

 Summer Vines 1
2019
Acrylic on paper collage
46x40cm

photography ©Benjamin Deakin

An Unopened Letter from Franz
2019
Acrylic on paper collage
30.5×25.5cm

photography ©Benjamin Deakin

 Mosel River
2019
Acrylic on paper collage
40x33cm

photography ©Benjamin Deakin

Summer’s Honey
2019
Acrylic on paper collage
44x40cm

photography ©Benjamin Deakin

A Letter from Franz
2019
Acrylic on paper collage
41x33cm

photography ©Benjamin Deakin

Political Papers is a series of works on paper which consider the book After Midnight. Written by Irmgard Keun and first published in Germany 1937, the novel portrays the steady uprise of the Nazi regime from the perspective of an otherwise politically unengaged young woman Sanna, who is more interested in parties and drinking beers at the pub. However, the reality of the political system slowly infiltrates and shapes her relationships with friends, partners and family. It affects how they conduct themselves in public as the walls of the regime gradually enclose them.  The story becomes the script, the images the performance. I keep close to the narrative, seeking intimacy and affinity with the main characters. With their ambivalence. With their delight in the celebration of parades and cultural union, alongside their casual lack of respect for the Führer and ridicule of the soldiers. With their disgust in the militarisation of Germany, which coincides with their powerless submission.

This series plays on pattern to mimic the way in which politics seeps into our surrounds, shaping everything from design and imagery to perception, and the very wallpaper of our interiors. Many of the collages feature extruding panels as if sections could be extracted, possibly replaced. They are purposely glued around their edges, so that much of the surface is loose. These treatments become devices to enhance potential slippage: the way images change meaning within different contexts and how they hold a number of decisions which could have gone another way.