Oil on canvas, stretched and ready to hang.

Signed on the front.

Engaging in and listening to complex, intelligent, and deep discussion is something I love deeply. I recently witnessed one such extraordinary discussion between Steven Fry and Jordan Peterson covering landscapes political, religious, psychological, mythological and more. So many profound statements were made, and each had me conjure an image to mind. This particular piece is first in a series that pays homage to such discussion that will be called 'The Spoken Word'. The importance of mature in-depth discussion is not lost on many of us I'm sure, and the internal communication we have with ourselves is equally important and we must actively seek to exercise it in a challenging, helpful, and inspiring manner. In this way perhaps we can steer away from submitting polarisation of views as the only ideal outcome. The idea that if one is not radically aligned to one side or another that one must somehow stand for nothing is misguided at best, however I fear that I'm beginning to see this position take an hold in our public and even private communication landscapes.
'Extremism exists in degrees. You can draw lines between what is reasonable, but you can keep drawing them out and then they become extreme' (JP). There are always varying degrees in life - a large middle ground to navigate, explore, and understand, and critical thinking and reading, I feel, has never been more important in our recent history. Our findings we must communicate to one another. Because 'if we continue to fracture, and we continue to find enemies amongst our own kind, then really it's a very sad outlook indeed' (SF). Perhaps this all begins with a single word. And during this 'liberal enlightenment' of sorts we have surely come to realise that words create things. They hold a significant role in manifesting our reality. Perhaps the very concept, the very existence of reality itself was first conjured and created by a single word.