Four Twenty Twenty

Done in the time of the initial hard lockdown, this work sees the artist employ the Vanitas usage of falling leaves to speak of our mortality. This in the face of a pandemic and set in an undetermined urban landscape makes for a powerful image. The title also acts as a date, Four Twenty Twenty meaning the fourth month (April) of 2020. The landscape is certainly urban and rendered in an almost cubist fashion. Nel explains why: My father passed away decades ago, very suddenly and violently. We had a volatile and fraught relationship. He never wanted me to become an artist. I became one. I thought I had dealt with this relationship, our many struggles and his untimely death in my work done in my twenties. These strange uncertain times we are currently in, led me to look inward, I found I needed to return to this relationship in my work. My dad was not an artist by profession but he was a creative, and he did do paintings, a few, and some commissioned 3-D pieces, sometimes more architectural than simply paint on canvas or board. This was in the late 70s and early 80s. I am attempting through these works to almost emulate the style he employed. It was very much from a time, and so my work may appear slightly old fashioned neo-cubist from the 70s and 80s. This is because I am trying to 'speak' in his language as it were. To try to meet him there. This time without resentment, no judgements, just to meet him there, almost formally