The Bones in the River
…Both paintings (Men of Cornwall and The Resistors) belong to a group of works which respond to early 19th century photos of popular folk events. I don't know (and don't really want to know) the exact details of these photos. I was more interested in the English 'folkish' in general, particularly as it manifested in early photography. There seems to be a strand which is of genteel reconstructions (or inventions) of earlier folk customs and another strand which seem to have a more subversive intention.
Both these paintings belong to this second, subversive strand. I believe they come out of a custom whereby unemployed farm labourers would perform for the wealthy in their district in mid-winter, and extort money. So there was a threatening aspect to it. I was thinking of our own Occupy movement at the time of painting them.
The title Men of Cornwall came from a book I was reading about Edward IV in which people in London were very much afraid that the men of Cornwall would march on the capital.
The title of the show, I See the Bones in the River, comes from the Gillian Welch song: Dark Turn of Mind.
EM 2013