Wish You Were Here

I've just uploaded a preorder button for the new size run of an old favourite art print to the shop, and as usual there is a little more to the piece than a pop of colour and some hand drawing. To me, thought behind any art or design is paramount, so I wanted to share a little about what inspired this one.

Many winters ago I visited the Alex Katz show at Turner Contemporary. His work is largely bold and colourful, but it was the teeny tiny and seemingly empty collages of his at the back of the gallery that I stood in front of for the longest (this blog has a lovely little example of similar ones by Katz here). They had a beautiful and careful lack of content, and a flatness about them that made them feel really passive and discreet to me. Un-shiny papers cut to make photograph sized images of tiny figures in pastel colours, they made me feel like I was looking at someone else's moment from a distance. I loved them.

I found the same careful balance of colour in a piece of art by Jeff Depner (shown here) and I liked it for the same reasons. Flat, calm, sweet, and touches of warm greys and black that make it feel even a little bit sad or nostalgic. 

I printed the piece below at a time when a person very close to me had lost someone. I was occupied with thoughts of wishing I could soothe or reverse what they were experiencing, and I knew that they in turn were feeling that way about the person they were missing.

Designed with love and friendship in mind, about the wish to escape to a distant and intimately baron place - where the sun is grey, but the sand is neon, and things can be different.