'IZMIR'

This is an excerpt from the book entitled 'Personal Maps'

PERSONAL MAPS - SENSE OF PLACE AND IDENTITY. A COLLECTION OF PRINTS

'IZMIR'

I looked for love and redemption.

Life still goes on,

It has spread like a blanket over it all.

The souls of our ancestors

Do they exist?

If so, the Crest and the Cross

Must be reconciled by now.

Let us then look for love in the new ruins

I know it must be there

Let the people be

Let them find peace

In the newborn.

'IZMIR'

This face emerged as an homage to Da Vinci. I wanted a timeless quality and an unusual vehicle for the rather grim narrative. The illustrations are about the destruction of Smyrna (Izmir) in 1922.  It is one of the saddest images in this series of prints and depicts the plight of all those affected by the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922.

The figure of the woman to the right is a version of my grandmother who was carrying my mother at the time. Although surrounded by the sadness and the destruction suffered by both sides, the promise of new life is what stands out in this image. The poem reinforces this concept and urges us to look beyond the catastrophe. Love is waiting to be discovered inside us all. It is there, sometimes in the ashes of the greatest tragedy. I feel we must believe that, to move on and rebuild. I applied a sepia tint to age the paper on some of the prints in the edition.