I took part in an exhibition for the STATIONS OF THE CROSS curated by Ben Moore, a friend who also lost his brother to psychological stress and disturbances, a need to flee from danger, originating from WITHIN and WITHOUT.
My contribution was this drawing called ‘DIVER’. It’s about a LEAP OF FAITH. The cross is not held vertically it’s positioned horizontally as though a springboard but also a games console handheld device. For more info, visit:
https://stationsofthecross.co.uk
Tragically, my brother Louis died from making a high jump in the summer of 2021 at the age of 43. He never saw my drawing. It’s a total coincidence that he chose to depart in this manner. I drew a lot of inspirations in my work from witnessing my brother survive some very challenging difficulties.
Louis sort of had an early death in his late teens. Something went badly wrong. Medical science didn’t really diagnose him with anything certain. He was treated with drugs, lots and lots of different types of drugs. And in between taking all these ‘meds’ he got some stability and then would lose it. It’s impossible to know in the end if the drugs were making him more ill than the underlying illness which doesn’t really have a marker since its diagnosis was based on the symptoms and not on the tissue pathology.
I hope that in future, therapeutics will be such that people like him will be able to make a full recovery. Even though he became a burden to everyone towards the end – most of all to himself. He was incredibly brave and strong and suprisingly together – he had curated all his belongings with impeccalbe lucidity and a well ordered presence of mind.
He has had a huge influence on my life – most of it bad pushing against the limits of endurance – but without him, I wouldn’t be an artist today, searching into deeper meaning.
This photo is how I like to remember his spirit, bouncing with a FEARLESS ABANDON for KNOWLEDGE and ADVENTURE. A LOVE of FREEDOM and UNABOUND by the GRAVITATIONAL CONSTRAINTS OF THE BODY.
‘INDEPEDENCIA’.
