Stephen – Roaming

Hats, Faces and Steam
This picture completes the migration trilogy.  It was influenced by Gare St. Lazare by Monet, the poster of the Jimmy Cliff film The Harder they Come, and a photograph taken at Victoria Station In 1959.
 
I particularly like the juxtaposition of burnt umber and cadmium orange which highlights the features of the faces, also the contrast between the blue-ish feel of the picture and the orange.  In the original photograph there was a young lady standing at the right.  I had to leave her out of the composition, as the monochrome photo process made her headgear/hair indistinguishable. 
 
This picture represents an important part of social history in this country.  And as I am a fan of Carribbean music, this is my tribute to these people.  

I came to Roaming because I’m interested in art.  I needed a creative outlet, because I was wasting my time singing in pubs for unappreciative people.  I had dabbled in art over the years, and it’s given me an excellent opporuntity to start painting with brushes on canvas, in the classical sense, and to develop these skills.  it’s a more worthwhile thing for me now than playing music.  This is a way of me expressing myself, and I’m not reliant on other people.

I’m working on  another migration theme picture.  This is some people arriving from the Carribean in the 1950s.  They’re at Victoria train station…hence the smoke.  This is a study–some of the drawings could be used for other things…they leave behind a Carribean island and arrive in a cold. damp and foggy country…inside the train station as well.  In the 1950s in England, everybody had coal fires still, and it was bad.  

I will continue with the migration theme for a while, but, I’d like to do street scenes, cars, vehicles, people, too.  It’s a form a daily migration that takes place.  I don’t know what direction I’ll go in the long term, but I know where I’m going now.  It’s really what catches the eye–you also creatively visualise things. It’s some of each.  What I see I put together in different ways.  You never know.  

This shows the unfairness of what wars do to people.  Those people probably haven’t got much, but they were happy.  And suddenly they’ve lost everything.  They’re fleeing for their lives.  The old lady is grieving.