Askew One

Periodically I post this wall I did with back in 2008 because sadly, it stays relevant. Every time I look at it and think it’s a simplistic take from a time my understanding of global politics was less informed, events happen that remind me it all really this stupid and tragic.

I used to paint this cartoonish eye of providence a lot and contrary to how a lot of people likely interpreted it, I was trying to say something totally different to what you might think. I had come through a period of going down the popular conspiratorial pipelines and kept being confronted by all the reductive tropes. I’m not a scholarly person, I barely have a genuine high school level education and so the depth of my understanding of history, class and geopolitics was not super informed at that time. Despite my growing sense that there was more complexity to the various power struggles and imbalances in the world I could see the temptation to leaning onto simple catch-all’s for blame was not the answer.

That said, currently it’s hard not to look at the current state of the world and see a relatively small group of ghoulish, power-hungry narcissistic psychopaths prepared to reduce regular human beings to mere collateral. Many are brazenly motivated by greed and self-interest, some are ideologically driven by a religious belief or nationalism. I don’t take sides with any of the war-mongers, authoritarians or zealots. There is no the enemy of my enemy is my friend that is justifiable in my opinion. Regardless of who you are, where you were born, whatever religion you practise, whatever languages you speak, you should have the basic right to exist, to live a dignified life without the fear of having your right to dissent taken, being kidnapped, starved or having a bomb dropped on your head.

I think we are living in a time that is now way beyond “hyper-normalisation”. It’s full on mask off, overwhelming, disorienting and delusional but the prevailing sense is this is a lot of things but “normal”. We have to find our moral clarity, humanity and deep empathy despite the information overload, the sea of takes and talking heads telling you what to think and feel.

https://www.askew1.com/blog/some-recent-reflections

Some recent reflections — ELLIOT O'DONNELL/ASKEW ONE Sometimes you have to pause, take a moment to reflect and look back over everything you’ve achieved in your life and ask yourself - am I telling my story correctly? I’ve spent the best part of the last 2-decades aspiring to be a full time artist, based on my idea of what that looks like and how ...

This awesome 11 colour screen print I released recently is now available on my online store!

Askew One - New Ways Of Seeing 11 colour screen print 250 gsm BFK Rives paper 19.5” x 25.5” Signed & numbered edition of 75 2022