Original artwork description:

This painting is from is a series of paintings originally painted for an international Arts Festival in the UK. They explore the lability of memories and how they change through time, via experience, insight and loss. How we can see more in them as we mature.
These are paintings of a childhood in the "Troubles" of Northern Ireland, which left the knawing sense of absence, lost potential and a longing for a home that is no longer there.
The paintings deliberately leave parts of the canvas unpainted, "unfinished" or blurred to express how memory alters with time and how some of those who helped make our memories are no longer here to share them with us anymore. They also express the things we have forgotten or would rather leave forgotten.

I grew up a Catholic in a Protestant Housing Estate and my best mate was a local Protestant kid. We were usually inseparable until the July "Marching Season" when Protestant neighbours stopped speaking to their Catholic neighbours, including my best friend. This would last a few weeks and then they would suddenly start speaking with you again. It was quite hurtful.
The part "unfinished" in the painting and my friend is expressing that ebbing away of the friendship, coming up to the upcoming silence and separation. Friendship would mean little then.
It also expresses the sense of not knowing what happened to him as we grew up and we grew apart.
The sense of not knowing how or where people from you past ended up, as if you are cast adrift from your past.

Materials used:

oil in linen canvas

Tags:

#james henry johnston #the troubles #oil painting #portrait #people #expressionist #artfinder #memory #northern ireland #in the garden #two boys #two friends