#309: Eavesdropping to an End

Listen in to the conversation of someone you don’t know and use what you hear to create a picture of them and their life.

#308: Vague surrealism

What you can remember of a recent, or memorable, dream, recorded as art.

Oil on canvas.  In the dark corner of a bedroom, an alien with an elephant’s head, holding a ray gun, the end of which looks like a large light, stands still on a square plinth in front of two cupboards at right angles to one another.  It is on guard, ready to shoot anything that moves.  In the foreground, a child is awake in bed, keeping absolutely still and rigid, a look of fear on their face.  On the floor is a book.

#307: They got a skin and they put me in it

A person being pushed and pulled and forced into a skin suit by a group of men in regular suits.

#306: The Deep Blue Okay

Oil on canvas.  View of a train window with a person sitting inside the train looking out the window, a neutral look on their face, but with a slight upturn at the corner of their mouth.  The window is entirely a deep blue colour.

Along the frame, underneath the painting are the words: “It’s the idea that there’s a place inside me, that’s blue, and okay, and is always there, even if it feels like it’s gone,” she [Self Esteem/Rebecca Lucy Taylor] reflects. “I just needed to know everything would be alright, in one way or another. So it’s an ideology for life – for people like me who are stressed out all the time…”*

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*O'Toole (2025) Self Esteem: "On the edge of putting Prioritise Pleasure out, I’d looked into training to become a keep-fit instructor...". Available at: https://www.hotpress.com/music/self-esteem-on-the-edge-of-putting-prioritise-pleasure-out-id-looked-into-training-to-become-a-keep-fit-instructor-23083680#:~:text=throughout%20the%20album.-,Advertisement,stressed%20out%20all%20the%20time%E2%80%A6%E2%80%9D (Accessed 11th and 14th July 2025).

Self Esteem (2025) ‘I Do And I Don’t Care’, A Complicated Woman [CD, 00602475498773]. UK, Polydor.

Self Esteem (2025) ‘Cheers To Me’, A Complicated Woman [CD, 00602475498773]. UK, Polydor.

Self Esteem (2025) ‘The Deep Blue Okay’, A Complicated Woman [CD, 00602475498773]. UK, Polydor.

#305: Family Bicycle Commute

Oil on canvas.  A father, his son and his daughter riding a bicycle together across a pedestrian crossing on Woodgrange Road in Forest Gate, London (they are travelling from the north side of Forest Lane, opposite the station, or from west to east across Woodgrange Road).  

The father sits in the bicycle seat, his son stands on one peddle, one hand on the handlebars, the other on his father’s arm, while his sister stands behind them on the rear wheel hub, her hand on her father’s shoulder.  All three look forward into the distance together, all set on the same goal.

#304: Introvert's Space

A room in which you have everything you need.  

And / Or

A head in which you have everything you need.

Not

A person who is lacking.

Or 

A person who is lonely.

Or

A person concerned only with themselves.

Or 

A person in a separate room or on their own, holding themselves apart on purpose and obsessed only with their own self.

But

A person who, though shy, and who may have trouble connecting with others, is also strong and has the tools they need to survive and thrive. 

And

Will do anything for you.

#303: Loving your own grass

Oil on canvas.  Painting of a patch of grass on which lies representations of all the things you love about your patch - whether that is the place you live, the place you come from, the place where you work or whatever you might take “your patch” to mean.

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After Morcheeba (feat. Oscar #Worldpeace) (2025) ‘Peace of Me’, We Live and Die / Peace of Me [7” 100S167]. UK, 100% Records: "Grass on the other side's greener / But I'm loving ours"