The Child Snatchers
Oil on canvas
30" x 20"
2006

Coursing through this painting – my second in oil, and my third overall – is the central theme of child abuse. The abusers, the eponymous child snatchers, are seen throughout the painting as frail beings whose eyes are defecating sphincters (although faeces are sometimes substituted by, for instance, hands, a sewing machine arm, and elephant trunk and green paint). Comprising much of the painting’s iconography are images of childhood, such as teddy bears, a kite, a crib, a swing, a roller coaster etc., that contrast with images of adulthood, such as giving birth, a symphony orchestra and conductor, a row of houses being guillotined, and a man smoking a paintbrush.

Although I’ve labelled The Child Snatchers an oil painting, I intended it for acrylic. Indeed, I had completed approximately a quarter of the painting using acrylics before concluding that their aesthetic shallowness contrasted too strongly with the dark subject matter, which might leave an impression of confused intent rather than irony. After switching to oils, the painting gained a newfound intensity and I managed to complete it with relative ease.

Today I view the painting very much as a transitional entity, and believe that subsequent ‘merging’ efforts surpass it in both colour harmony and compositional maturity.