Transportation Of Alienation And Intimacy.

Oil on Canvas. 3 people seated on train in close physical proximity, each is privately reading the metro newspaper and unaware of the others located close by. I chose to use a mixture of garish and anemic colour tones to promote the eerie artificial lighting on the train at that time of night. This should exaggerate claustrophobic atmosphere, and personal isolation of their segmented lives.

  

A series of posters from my self chosen summer project, 'Transportation of Alienation and Intimacy'. Dealing with how people are affected by the social sanctions which are set up to induce conversation through the necessity of travel and minimal space. Friendliness is immediate, but what do we know of these strangers we meet? For an allotment of time we are caught in each others lives. It may mean uncomfortable introductions followed by a monologue of over sharing  all under the allusion that this must be better than the feared awkward silence.  Or the unthinking primal desire to be polite - the united shuffle of positions to make way for an aged man, or a woman maneuvering a small child and buggy.

I am intrigued by the way we appear in these scenarios. Inadvertently people are momentarily bonded together in these situations. Although a license to talk isn't always found and people may often be packed in closely sitting in silence waiting for their destination. This for me is a perfect disillusioned juxtaposition, physical proximity presides anything personal.

"Heartbreakingly Intimate Whilst Being Entirely Distant" - Jemima Kirke

I feel like this quote encapsulates what am am trying to examine in our ever  evolving society.  In "Can I Sit here?" a series of repeating images taken from my original train painting. I put forward a patten of vulnerability, an almost child like fear of rejection directed at someone who has neither personal relevance nor emotional hold. Naturally it can be interpreted numerous ways, but the layout is always the same, formulaic and as simple as a bus ticket.                                                                                                                               

                            

I wanted to further examine this sense of intimate alienation by making a poster that would directly and unambiguously look at how often we barley notice another living person, even when they are sat oppersite us. We may gaze emptily through them, pondering our own private thoughts. But never do we make eye contact or commit their face to memory.

 This mock up of a 'Missing Person Poster', to me seemed to provoke a feeling of self awareness. Naturally its unrealistic to assume any person would have a connection to everyone they encountered in such a transitory place, but with this work I invite the viewer reflect on something they have been present for but not witnessed.

My intention is to leave this poster up on bus timetables, in order for the viewer to remove a tab from the latter half of the poster which reads 'I have now'. 3 powerful words. Similarly as with 'Can I Sit Here'' i wanted there to be a remnant of the interaction of viewer and art, akin to a bus ticket. I imagine that it would be taken primarily for its novelty and stashed in the persons pocket, only to be rediscovered later when it has lost context. The start and end of a journey.