Original artwork description:

This is a portrait of Jane X who was an emancipated slave from the United States of America. The image comes from the 1920s and is held in an archive of images recording this period of time concerned with slavery.

The purpose of creating these paintings is to explore th epeople who have been lost to time or forgotten, filed away in another 'system', awaiting rediscovery by a future generation, in this case by me, where by I am creating a series of portraits of people linked to the personal project exploring Lost Generations from history to the present era.

I am exploring these images and creating this work for two main reasons:

1: Exploring my feelings about certain aspects of our past and its effect upon our present era

2: Exploring lost generations and revealing the obscured, forming portraits to keep alive the people of our past

Comes with the following poem extract:

‘Bristol, thine heart hath throbb’d to glory. – Slaves,
E’en Christian slaves, have shook their chains, and gaz’d
With wonder and amazement on thee.

They fill their mouthing, vap’rous sighs and tears,
Which, like the guileful crocodile’s, oft fall,
Nor fall, but at the cost of human bliss.’

Ann Yearsley

‘A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave trade’
Inscribed to the Right Honourable and Right Reverend Fredrick
Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Derry & Co

February 1788

Materials used:

Watercolour and Oil Painting on Watercolour Paper

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