Monday, 25 August 2025

#312: What they think is real

Text reads: "We have to fight what isn’t real or true," above a gif of an animated puppet show showing the villains of the day.

Monday, 18 August 2025

#311: A Sunny Day

Imagine a sunny day.

And what you would do to make you happiest to enjoy, or avoid, that day.

Close your eyes, imagine and, hopefully, smile.


Or, if it is sunny, put this into practice.

Monday, 11 August 2025

#310: Echo Chambers

A large space through which have been set up several paths that fork several times.  At each fork the visitor is sent on a route according to their beliefs.  Each route ends in a space with chairs, tables and refreshments where visitors are encouraged to sit and socialise.

Monday, 4 August 2025

#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.

Monday, 28 July 2025

#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.

Monday, 21 July 2025

Monday, 14 July 2025

#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…”*




*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.