Being a maker of beautiful things to wear, I used to worry about focusing exclusively on something so engagingly frivolous as jewellery. This is how my sculptural art work started, as a response to the many different kinds of pain I was observing all around me.
Art can effect change by responding to political situations and initiating dialog in those who experience it. In this way, art takes on its own political and social dimensions so that the art itself can become more a focus of controversy than the situation it is commenting on.
Art Critic Boris Groys maintains that art has its own power in the world, and is as much a force in the power play of global politics today as it once was in the arena of cold war politics.
"All creative activism, if it works well, is a work of art, the same way that every good work of art, if it concerns itself with reality and politics, is a form of activism." Ai Wei Wei
Despite violence being the fashionable solution to conflict situations, it is no silver bullet.
Aluminium and sterling silver mounted on acrylic painted canvas.
It was with these thoughts in mind that I submitted Haute Bandolier With Silver Bullet for inclusion in Art The Arms Fair. This event brought artists together to highlight the presence of a huge arms fair in London in September 2017. I supported the event primarily because of the UK arming Saudi Arabia and the consequent human devastation in Yemen at the hands of fighters brandishing British weapons.
The work was was exhibited at SET Space in London to coincide with the fair. There was an incredibly moving selection of work many donated by famous artists, including Banksy. All sales went the Campaign Against the Arms Trade.