My own connections with Alexandria are nebulous - mainly a deep love inspired by Constantin Cavafi's poetry., Cavafi who was of Greek origin spent his life in Alexandria and was an inspiration to poets like Auden and many others. His voice is so unique that it survives a range of translations and still manages to sound like him.

While researching materials for the Alexandrian panel of 'To Reach a Port' I found this article interesting:
thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/ireland-and-egypt-the-connection

Thinking about the 'Passover' today and all that this has meant in the history of a people forever associated with diaspora and displacement. Today in our COVID aware world many more people are coming to grips with the impact of separation and isolation. The biblical Passover in contemporary terms can be interpreted as taking precautionary measures against a plague, families and communities supporting each other in difficult times and an intense awareness of imminent danger. We would do well to learn these lessons.

It's been quite a year since Odyssey: Explorations in Liverpool and some members of the Odyssey Group have joined me online to work on an ambitious new digital project, one which has taken us out of our individual comfort zones to explore a whole new range of possibilities.

​For this first stage of this project I'm working with Terri Broughton, Chen Mei-Tsen, Maureen Kendal, Nazia Parvez, Sarah Rubidge

In Boundless – Worlds in Flux we the collaborating artists invite participants to share their passion for our planet and its inhabitants both human and non-human.
 
We will invite viewers to navigate their way through the interrelated and interconnected artists’ worlds where they can access a range of experiences, stories, video clips, soundscapes. These hotspots for interactivity can be accessed easily and in any sequence, providing our visitors with an open-ended experience, one which can be revisited and always provide new insights. In some ways the experience will be similar to people dropping into a museum or public gallery and focus on different collections or exhibitions depending on what appeals to them and how much time they can spend there. 
 
We are also creating a shared environment called Your Space where visitors can join the creative conversation and leave their own comments, video clips, photos, music/sound clips, poetry etc.  This will be a generative space growing in size and complexity over time. 
I will post further updates about the project in the coming weeks and months.

This is a bit of a late posting but only because I've been so busy!!! Between 4 - 18 May I held a micro exhibition in my front garden showing one artwork every day (until the last day when I showed 3). As a result of all the positive responses I initiated a neighborhood arts with other artists I met during my micro show.
Youtube link- One Day at  a Time -micro exhibition  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=030X2yQI--k

We live in a time where we can change things if we act and if we commit. How much longer do people of colour have to put up with being treated as lesser? treated as alien? When I was a young person and came to London to live for the first time in 1981, my Irish accent marked me out as different - I was often treated with extreme rudeness, outrageous condescension and racism, but hey - I am white and well educated! I got angry, confrontational and called it out. Back then we Irish were the 'Muslims' of UK social landscape, politically dangerous bombers and troublemakers.
I was working as a live-in cleaner at The Kingsley Hotel, Bloomsbury when the Brixton riots were ignited. Many of the chamber maids and kitchen staff lived in Brixton and  as there were no trains, no buses, they had to walk along the underground train tracks to get to work. One assistant chef was sacked because he couldn't walk fast enough and arrived at work late. The management prioritised the interests of reception staff (all white) and I and my Irish friend with whom I shared a room escaped difficulty because we were a. on site and b. the head of housekeeping was also Irish. It was very obvious that management regarded their black staff as expendable and replaceable. We did protest but were not exactly in a position of power...... I wish I could say that this attitude is gone - but it's not!. My children went to very diverse state schools in Lambeth- thank goodness! - they grew up knowing that their peers black, white, pink, brown or yellow are people just like them, no better and no worse. As artists we are always a bit on the fringe of society and it is our duty to call out racism, sexism and any other divisive isms in a way that engages, challenges and embraces our diverse communities. I must stop now or I'll start talking about revolution....

I completed this work for an exhibition in Paris which was of course, cancelled because of the Covid19 crisis. I had begun making it just before Christmas and finished it in early March. It is a reflection on where we find ourselves as human beings living in a climate change emergency. Even though I knew from friends how Covid19 was affecting life in China I had not taken on board that it would hit Europe in the same way, largely because of remembering SARS and subsequent viruses. I was a fool - like so many - I should have been expecting the worst. In this artwork where a rising sea teams with life, where cities lie drowned in their depths, my imagination was more in touch with the realities we face than my conscious self.

'Venice' central panel of five for 'Port' an artwork which explores  the intertwined narrative of East/West trade and exchange from historical, philosophical and personal perspectives. 
​102 x102cm canvas, acrylic, collage, gold leaf

The online catalogue for my upcoming exhibition features the curatorial essay written by Emily de Wolfe Pettit. 

I've been spending a lot of time on my new Oculus Quest using Tiltbrush to create 'sketches' for the artwork I'll present at Tate Exchange Liverpool. It's massively interesting - and often frustrating and I am really enjoying the process. My assistant Terri Broughton and I have been troubleshooting and sharing the headset (it gives you quite a headache if you wear it for more than an hour and a half.... So I'll start posting these sketches as they're completed. The idea of using all kinds of vessels, not just maritime ones is a reminder that human beings use many means of travelling and maybe in the future we will need to become migrants in space. On a day when one unfortunate would be migrant fell out of a plane and landed in garden in Clapham, it feels appropriate to consider that with changing circumstances we might all be driven to being stowaways....