See Jane Run

The title comes from the Dick and Dora learn to read books of my youth. I like the contrast of the completely benign, innocent and vaguely inane stories, with what is happening in the image. That is why Jane is dressed as she is. The sharks are not necessarily dangerous and a careful look will show that there is another shark ahead of her. So it is ambiguous as to whether she is running from or running with. It feels very like what I feel, watching my daughter growing up and taking risks in a world so different from the one I grew up in. At one part admiring the bravery, and joie de vie, and also fearing for her. The saying ‘you have the tiger by the tail’ is also relevant. While we all know that we want safety for the people we love and autonomy for ourselves, when it comes to children we are more ideologically vulnerable. The sharks in my work stem from a waking dream I had as a child. I had been to Marine land and my head was full of the image of the shark tank. Although Mum was in the room, telling me there wasn’t anything there, I could see them all swimming all around her in the dark. It wasn't scary, it was fantastic. They have held a special place for me ever since. The place is Aukland Island, a very remote island in the New Zealand subantarctic group. It is a rarely visited and inhospitable place in the southern ocean, which holds a special and evocative mood and a long history of tragic shipwrecks and desperate survival stories. It makes a nice illustration of parental anxiety. The trees are rata - endemic to that area and New Zealand.