The Scottish writer and activist Alistair McIntosh once told me ‘It’s tough to be a young man in this world’ and he was right.
Images of adult manhood given to us by popular culture and mass media appear worn out. The right man, the tough man, the true man, all of which have been force fed to us since birth and are neither accurate nor relevant to the real life of a modern male.
When I recently became a father, my preconceptions of what it meant to be a man were flipped upside down. I found that the irreversible transition between boyhood and manhood had begun and with guidance from a long forgotten fairy tale, my most recent work explores key moments from what is perhaps the most challenging and turbulent time in any man’s life.
The collection of work comprises paintings that juxtapose imagery of London streets and statues of immortalised heroes, double exposure photography and installations that use images of light and death as an allegory for change. ‘Where is Iron John?’ is a visual representation of a young man dissecting masculinity whilst negotiating the complexities of modern life in the inner city.
(Detail of final canvas in progress - currently untitled)
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