For the start of 2022 I decided to post my new black-and-white photographs. I am happy to say that even if 2021 was a challenging year, I was able to make more work, both in terms of paintings, installations, sculptures and photography. I would like to thank my collectors for supporting my work during the pandemic. Due to the pandemic, I hear from musician friends of mine and other artists that have been fewer opportunities to exhibit or play music in public; hopefully things will improve with the pandemic and restrictions easing. The Christmas period was much better than the previous two years with no building work opposite me and I was able to see my friends - it felt like a return to some sort of normality.
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There is also a problem with some galleries not supporting artists with disabilities, I think a lot of people with disabilities struggle to showcase their artwork, if they don't know someone who is tech savvy, business orientated or are not tech savvy themselves. Some disabled people have complex needs, which might make it very difficult for them to successfully promote their work to galleries; others find themselves in a highly competitive art world, where how you look, and how you speak is more important than your actual work. I have seen time and time again artists who are very good at talking about their work and themselves, basically promoting themselves getting all the support from galleries, collectors while other more introverted artists with better artwork not doing so well.
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Than there are artists who successfully sell online on different platforms but again it requires them to have the basics: a decent laptop connection, a space where you store artwork, a decent phone with a decent camera to constantly upload content to your online platform - none of the above comes cheap. Nowadays some galleries only accept artists with an Instagram account - isn't this discriminatory? You might find that some people with disabilities are low waged and don't have access to any of the above, making it really difficult for them to compete with other non-disabled artists in the art world. Very few disabled people actually get any support to promote their artwork to allow them to do well no matter what age and background they have, and no matter what kind of disability - visible or invisible - they have. While there are many disabled artists, the funding to support them has been squeezed time and time again, so in the end it will only be available to few disabled artists while the rest are left to fend for themselves or with support from their families if they are lucky. This situation has gotten worse with the pandemic.
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I am grateful that I can continue in my artistic endeavours thanks to my own stubbornness in going forward and to my collectors who believe in me and my artwork even if I am an esoteric artist - they tell me that they find my artwork stimulating and that I never fail to amuse them. They admire my tenacity in keeping my artwork going no matter what, even if I have continuos dizziness most of the time, so even making conversation takes a lot of energy and focusing on objects or people it's challenging, especially when taking photographs as everything is moving for me.
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In the past year, and most recently, I have been continuing to take black-and-white photographs with different cameras. Most of them don't include people this was because many were taken during restrictions; others were taken when I was away experiencing freedom again and actually saw some real human beings!
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