Inscriptions
This is a small section from a mammoth painting incorporating text from a newspaper reporter’s (Ernie Pyle) article reporting on his roof-top view of the London Blitz, in 1940. The full quote is: ‘There was something inspiring just in the awful savagery of it…..These things all went together to make the most hateful, the most beautiful single scene I have ever know.’ In this interpretation the aim was to juxtapose the savage aspect (dark colours and jagged forms) with the beautiful (bright colours and playful positioning of letters intertwining).
The idea of such an elongated painting was inspired by long papyrus scrolls and the famous Bayeux Tapestry, which tell their stories in episodic form, inviting the reader to move along the document to take in the complete message.