Mankind is currently bludgeoning his way through a second Middle Ages crisis. We cope by posting petit bourgeois selfies in verite dissaray whilst a tomcat called Tyson coughs up fur balls for fun.

Some will sip on fireside malts and await direction: empathic enlightenment rather than a second industrial strength Renaissance. Another Bernini might be nice but we've yet to catalogue the one we have.

Maybe it will happen on the streets: it’s always the streets isn’t it – those comfortable, kettle friendly cul de sacs that carry us home on a water cannon wave of cabernet cabaret and spine tingling nerve gas. As you read this, someone in a grey hoodie with Athletic stencilled on the front is reclaiming them by tagging your polytunnel in large fluorescent bubble letters. He is a vegan called Jim or James. Or Beth.

Or Both

'theirs is a tale as old as the hills, of one man’s right to dream, to see not only the big pixel but also all the little pixies that hold it all together. It is about one man’s struggle to be not only an oily painter but also a man. It is about a friendship between that man and another man, a larger, better built, more purposeful man but a man none the less, and how a mutual respect allows them to toilet together without fear of petty reprisals. It is these men, two shiny-headed baldy giants amongst men, in ill-fitting suits and their moustaches, one economy and one business class, each poised on the cusp, between a weak chin and a tentatively dripping nose, and their struggle to simply...‘be’...'*

*Taken from Rothko Paints a Flower, Cheek by Joel's debut graphic novella available through Bare Hill Publishing.

2014 Book launch, Malvern

Ongoing