Ghosts of Christmas Past: CMR Exhibition

In December an exhibition will be taking place at the CMR Gallery in Redruth, Cornwall.  The members of the gallery will be showing work in an exhibition to mark the festive season.  The exhibition's brief is for artists to come up with an idea about Christmas, but as an alternative to the season and the commercial reality of Christmas.

 

As part of the exhibition I am creating a piece exploring a similar vein to my last two paintings.  I will saturate the canvas with a variety of images, each coming from a past period of time which has some connection to Christmas.  Photographs of still images; stills from video adverts; stories from literature; past ideals of Christmas; memories of Christmas movies and books.  This time I will leave the charcoal shading, rather than black and white paint for the time being.

The image will be rendered in charcoal and shading with brushes.  Each image will intersect and become an interconnected form through its process.  The multitude of images revealing our interconnected past; history through culture. 
The commercialism of a deeply rooted pagan celebration, re-told in modern myths of advertising selling a desire, it wants to create within us.  The death and re-birth to the life-giving Sun; tales told of many heroes of myth representing this astronomy based observation of time passing from one season to the next.  Our rituals from the past carried through the ages; transformed into modern day celebrations of the ending of Winter and the beginning of longer days and a return to warmer climes.