Groups of displaced people have a particular resonance for me because I am Jewish.
I became concerned with the plight of asylum seekers and refugees when the tabloid press took up the issue and began to deliberately and regularly inflate the tension surrounding the subject of immigration and confuse the distinction between asylum seekers and migrant workers. I felt my sympathies being drawn to both groups for different reasons.
I was very much pre-occupied with the dilemma of where these people would go if they were refused entry, or leave to remain, in this country. It was as if we being encouraged to believe the problem would go away if these groups of people were refused entry. At this point anonymous representations of uprooted humanity began to wander onto my canvases and as I made space for them, their predicaments and their complex histories began to haunt me. I feel that I can work through my own obligations and manifest my empathy by resolving these issues visually.