The Race

A painting based on drawings made at a factory in Trimdon Grange, County Durham when I was artist in residence there for the UK Year of the Artist Millenium project. The company sales director is sitting at a minimalist desk focused on the task at hand whilst in the background, outside, a black horse stands still in the snow resting a hind leg in the air.  Behind the horse is a typical County Durham terrace of miners cottages from when Trimdon was a busy mining village. The factory is on a small, very non-descript trading estate which was erected after the mine was demolished. The black pit heap once sat where the horse now stands in the white snow. Things seem fixed but everything changes in time.
I met local MP Tony Blair when he and his wife came to see my exhibition at the factory, just up the road from their constituency house in Trimdon Colliery. This was when things could “only get better” early in Tony’s first term as Prime Minister. He knew everybody’s name - an exceptional memory. Pity about the subsequent Iraq War and its bloody aftermath, the dreadful legacy of PFI contracts and the cosying up to autocratic world leaders in Trump’s so called Board of Peace. Tony was all smiles in those days which isn’t surprising when you think what he was achieving back then - an electable Labour Party. Nowadays he looks care worn like he has the world on his shoulders. Everything changes. I’d like to paint his portrait one day as a thank you for taking time out of his busy Christmas schedule. If you’re reading this Tony, do get in touch!

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