I was pushing myself quite hard to finish a painting for the Batsford Prize with the theme "At Peace" because I felt the theme is relevant to me. Is "peace" overrated, especially now? Yet, isn't it paramount that we need to find inner peace, or make peace with certain situations that are out of our control for the moment? Isn't that a power for us to keep calm and carry on until we see the sun rise again? That's a dynamic I want to present in my new painting.
I think blue is an interesting colour for this because it is such a calm colour, almost therapeutic. Yet, blue symbolises depression and things as fierce as the ocean are also blue. What if I turn an nuclear bomb explore mushroom cloud into blue?
I try to make it a quite eye-catching large painting, and at the same time have a touch of craft and comic-like, by using marker and leaving blank space, so as to make it seems fake or some level ridiculous.
I originally planned to insert metal into the canvas, so as to add a sense of reality of fragments from explosion, but due to technical issue I couldn't do it in time. And later on, I just thought it wouldn't be necessary since the shapes and explosion are already enough for the message.
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