'goatland, vintage 64'
a rude word for nonsense—and quite possibly my favourite word… ever.
this piece revisits an earlier painting that once hung in our lounge. memorably, it became one of the first words our son learned. parenting, redefined.
while celebrating my 60th birthday—with a steam rail trip, a michelin-star meal, excellent accommodation, and seriously good coffee—my natural response to it all was fairly consistent: fuck it all… and, more to the point, bollocks to growing old.
alongside that came the urge to return to graphite, and that lingering smell of pure turpentine. the result is a drawing that captures that particular moment and mood.
“bollocks” remains gloriously vulgar in many settings, so it shouldn’t be thrown around too carelessly. it might get a laugh. it might not. context is everything.
it’s also a word full of contradictions. the dog’s bollocks—high praise. simply bollocks—utter nonsense, dismissal, exasperation.
in art, it carries a certain provocation. think never mind the bollocks, here's the sex pistols—bold, irreverent, unapologetic. the word works as satire, disruption, a small rebellion against pretension.
sometimes it’s crude. sometimes it’s comic. sometimes it’s cultural commentary.
and sometimes… it’s just bollocks.