MAKING THE CONNECTION is a painting with a pro-Europe theme that can be seen on my website.  www.davidcrew.org

It was shown in the Rye Society of Artists Summer Exhibition of 2018.

The setting for this painting is an imagined ‘Halt’ on the Zugspitzbahn, the railway line that makes its way from the Bavarian town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen towards the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain.

‘Making the Connection’ is my response to the impending loss of our European Union citizenship and its associated benefits and freedoms, due to the result of the referendum held on 23rd June 2016.  I could have made a painting that was angrier and more despairing given my determinedly pro-European position and certainly there is an element of sadness, here represented by the figure looking down the track, wondering perhaps “where do we go from here?”

However, I felt that I also wanted to try and convey the importance of our European historical and cultural connections by recalling some of the inspirational places I have visited.  I chose to do this by ‘applying’ stickers to my much travelled suitcase, which I recall was made in Denmark and bought in Brighton.

There are also pictorial references on the suitcase to a station (the Eibsee) on the Zugspitzbahn at bottom left, and at top right to how the landscape would appear were the painting to be extended upwards, green slopes giving way to mountains.

The images on the suitcase tell as much of the story as I felt was necessary in the context of the painting.  There may of course be more stickers on the opposite side of the suitcase - the spectator is free to imagine which locations these might represent!

DC

January 2019.