Artist's Statement;
Not all transformations are for the best. Following
the result of the 2016 European Union membership referendum, my unease
regarding the process turned to consternation as the right wing of the
Conservative party increasingly dictated the terms of proposed withdrawal from the EU. Furthermore,
the Labour party’s position of ‘constructive ambiguity’ offered little hope of a
coherent or strident opposition.
Prime Minister
Theresa May called a snap general election in June 2017, which resulted in the
Conservatives losing their majority and striking a deal with with the Democratic Unionist Party in order to stay in
power. Following the invocation of
Article 50 the PM conducted negotiations with the EU on a withdrawal agreement
and draft political declaration, which was finally endorsed by the EU27 leaders
in November 2018. The deal was then put to the House of Commons and rejected on
three occasions. An impasse was created by rival factions in the main political parties, whilst the Brexit deadline of 29 March 2019 drew ever closer.
In this
increasingly chaotic political climate, I started to wonder how I could make an
artwork about these developments. I kept a notebook containing quotations from
politicians and commentators and began to make a few tentative sketches of
maps. Long ago I had bought a pre-war Collins’ New Popular Atlas in which much
of the world was coloured pink, denoting the British
Empire, and this now seemed to chime with the nostalgic ambitions of some Brextremists. Working with topographical imagery was not entirely
new to me as in 2007 I had made a satirical series entitled ‘Lie of the Land’
using Google Earth.
It was a phrase
by the newly ennobled Brexiteer Sir John Redwood,
however, that finally prompted me into action. In stating that he could not
support Theresa May’s withdrawal deal, he suggested that there were “huge
agendas of opportunity” after the UK left the EU. It was the nature of these
unspoken agendas that I determined to speculate on in ‘A Brexit Fantasia’.
In conclusion I should say something about my general
approach to making satirical artworks. Campaign slogans, propaganda and
advertising all attempt to deliver direct, unambiguous messages, but art has a
different function. By courting multiple interpretations through layers of
imagery, ideas and associations, art can engage the viewer in a manner which offers them a role in the making of meaning. A
simple slogan such as ‘Brexit is Bonkers’ functions
well enough on a demonstration placard but has little afterlife, whereas a good
artwork can be returned to time and again, offering different nuances of
meaning on each occasion.
John Goto
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