2023-24

Almost daily, people say “the world has gone crazy”. Is it a new phenomenon? Apparently not. In the 1570s-80s the word “crazy” described someone diseased or sickly, or a broken, cracked or flawed object. By the 1610s it referred to a deranged or unsound mind. The Jazz Age of the 1920s saw a new variant of “crazy” – anything cool or exciting. Today, a “crazy world” can be anything from extreme, life-threatening situations to outrageous, bizarre, or fantastic behaviour.

The constant stream of (mis/dis)information and news overwhelms our attempts to construct and maintain order in the increasing chaos of daily life. We are left confused and dispirited by everyday and globally significant events. Political decisions driven by ideologies increasingly result in bloodbaths that engulf the innocent.

The latest digital phenomenon, AI (artificial intelligence) potentially submerges or destroys reality, invoking some sort of sci-fi scenario. Its intrusion into the world of art leaves us doubting if the work is the product of a human being or an information-fed machine. Maybe it’s a useful tool, and maybe not. The algorithms scrape the internet using the work of multiple artists – is this any different from art influencing art, or is it a sophisticated form of plagiarism? Just another aspect of our “Crazy World”.

Numbers 1-4 and 10 in this series are small, and have been reproduced as greetings cards. They utilize some of the motifs from my early works, as do numbers 5-12. The remaining work is more abstract in form.

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