The table tennis paddle and ball allude to ‘table tennis diplomacy’. The deliberate skewing of scale is to visually portray the idea of sitting at the ‘big boy’s’ table.

Mickey Mouse is a reference to the United States of America; the duck is China…or is it Mickey and Donald? A private school boy is privilege personified. Donald Trump is trying to be at the Big Boys’ Table……

The bottom half of New Zealand artist Colin McCahon’s “Scared”1976 painting is shown in an interior. The school girl stands on a couch to be seen……# Me Too. She stands on Kuba Cloth, a product of joint effort made by the men and women of Congo. Historically this was a ceremonial garment……# Me Too is a movement for all oppression…..

A privileged boy walks nonchalantly toward an Egyptian Revival Art Deco chair of the 1930s.The chair has a mushroom cloud appendage; a product of furious research. A portentous religious banner hangs above the industry of warfare.

“At that moment the curtain from the temple was torn from top to bottom” Matt 27:50. This is taken from the crucifixion account. The “Godhead/ Trinity “is represented by the two dogs (palindrome of God) and the bird. It is George Braque’s bird. This was his self-proclaimed non-symbolic motif of life, as the Holy Ghost. Telling an old story in a new way….

Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

Comet over Lake Haupiri

William Blake was a visionary English poet and artist who wrote “Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience”. He was fascinated by apocalyptic biblical beliefs. A frequent theme was his emphasis on the frailty of human communities where the roles of mother and father were defined by society rather than natural instincts. Here, a parallel is drawn between the dogma Blake railed against, and ,Gloriavale, on the banks of Lake Haupiri in the South Island of New Zealand. On the surface Gloriavale is a pastural idyll, yet, below is a hierarchical system abusing of spiritual authority for economic and political ends; “dark satanic mills”

The benign appearance of New Zealand artist, Gavin Chilcott’s “The Swan”, has the twofold role of symbolising emancipation and of recalling the blossom festivals of the 1950s to 1970s in provincial New Zealand. Chilcott’s swan is a faithful recreation of a float in the original 1952 Blossom Festival parade in Hastings. Chilcott’s “Rights of Spring” show highlighted the joint ideals of community focus and the fecundity of nature; abundance and prosperity of this time in New Zealand’s cultural history. The ominous presence of the comet above alludes to Revelations 6:13, “where the stars fall to Earth like figs dropped from a tree in a high wind”. The colour palette is deliberately evocative of Carlotta Edwards; famous for her ballet scenes. These were reproduced in droves in the 1950s, frequently on drink coasters with gilded edges.