Blake's Jerusalem these days is seen as an expression of an idealised England. But Blake was actually a radical social visionary and champion of the poor. The imagery within the poem of great contrasts between idealism and reality was the basic starting point for my work for this show: "Celestial Suburbia". Leeds obviously and for good reason gets presented to the outside world as a gleaming successful commercial corporate city; but the vast majority of the population live in suburbs which often only make news for less positive reasons. I wanted to explore this dichotomy and what sort of wider "Jerusalem" we've created in this multi-cultural city.
Celestial Suburbia is a four panel piece approximately (0 x 120 cm each, reverse painted in acrylic and ink on perspex, with gilding and viewable from both sides when installed.
