David Woodings – The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Merrily go around

Following the silk card series Somme/Silk Road of 2015/16 which sought to connect images and narratives from WW1 greetings cards with stories from home, and connect to the 100 year centenary of battles of the Western Front, I have returned with this series to images of previous comfort in Merrily go around.

Carousels and arcade machines have underpinned my oeuvre for some time, presenting visual, musical, emotional, and allegorical connections to imagination and narrative. In Merrily go around the works reference an allegorical relationship between carousels and politics.

The longing for water is embodied in these works, depicting our engagement with the elusive and immaterial quality of water. It becomes as lively as a spirit body in an aborigine rarrk painting. Through the white streaked paint marks which accentuate and abstract the movement of water, the water becomes an enlivened force in the work.

My work, like Hockney’s Californian swimming-pool paintings, give us that sense of desire that accompanies the recreational engagement with water. I have looked at my water focusing on immersion and floating, creating a sense of detachment and of passing through. This body of work preserves the memories and experiences of engaging with our waterways.