Between Violence and Friendly persuasion,
oil on canvas © Pip Dickens
Notions of propaganda can be interpreted
as positive- ie. aiming to spread information
to new areas that previously may have been
ignorant of a cause or culture. It can also
be used to negative effect, for example,
in spreading misinformation in order to manipulate
a situation.
Propaganda is a received perspective and
in these paintings I was influenced by such
commentators as Noam Chomsky, Edward Said
and the novels of Albert Camus, in particular
his novel La Peste (The Plague) in which
a community is cut off from the rest of the
world due to quarantine. Thus perspectives
between the outer and inner communities becomes
separated - alienated.
The title 'Between Violence & Friendly
Persuasion' is lifted from a series of essays
by Albert Camus that appeared in Combat,
the daily newspaper of the French Resistance,
in November 1946. In it Camus warns of dangers
ahead for the human race:
....all I ask is that, in the
midst of a
murderous world, we agree to
reflect on murder
and to make a choice. After that,
we can
distinguish those who accept
the consequences
of being murderers themselves
or the accomplices
of murderers, and those who refuse
to do
so with all their force and being.
Since
this terrible dividing line does
actually
exist, it will be a gain if it
be clearly
marked. Over the expanse of five
continents
throughout the coming years an
endless struggle
is going to be pursued between
violence and
friendly persuasion, a struggle
in which,
granted, the former has a thousand
times
the chances of success than that
of the latter.
But I have always held that,
if he who bases
his hopes on human nature is
a fool, he who
gives up in the face of circumstances
is
a coward. And henceforth, the
only honorable
course will be to stake everything
on a formidable
gamble: that words are more powerful
than
munitions.
Albert Camus - Neither Victims
nor Executioners,
(1946)
These influences were interpreted in the
utilization of an ellipse motif which, in
short, represents the individual. The ellipse
shape could be interpreted as the lens of
an eye - how we see, or how we are seen.
As in the painting Between Violence and Friendly
Persuasion the motifs appear to tumble and
fall. Each motif appearing at differing positions
or angles. The painting's overall impact
is the combination of many, many layers of
semi transparency thus some areas are dense
and seem to cover up any history; others
make transparent that history.
These paintings were selected for shortlist
in the NatWest Art prize in 1997.
To see more works from this series, visit
the Propaganda Gallery page
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