Can You FeelThe Force?

charcoal study

This new drawing, which I’ve completed this week, is based on a photograph I took on my phone of a lorry park viewed over a bridge near the M5 exit junction for West Bromwich. I kept spotted it as I drove past and eventually found myself dodging down a few side roads and ducking under a dimly lit underpass that led to the bridge where I could peer over at this strange view of all these shiny white lorries. With there domed cabs and black, visor like windshields I couldn’t help but be reminded of the stormtroopers and their helmets in ‘Star Wars’. 

 'Star Wars' stormtrooper

Stormtrooper helmets

I’d like to, in my vanity, reference something a bit more high culture like Elizabeth Frink’s ‘Goggle heads’ for example, but I’m afraid it was the sci-fi appeal of the view that came first and led me there. 

 Elizabeth Frink, 'Gogglehead'

But hey, I’d also like to think I’m the sort of painter that can mix his high and low cultural reference points and have them sit happily next to each other, and even, if they can overcome their initial anxieties and suspicions, have some sort of dialogue with each other.