A painting about power relationships

The Tall Stilt Problem

Watercolour and ink on paper. 21x29cm. 2025

Exhibited in Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery, July – August 2025

The painting depicts one of the aspects of power relationships.

It shows two people on stilts – one on tall stilts and one on shorter stilts. The tall stilts symbolise greater power. The person on the shorter stilts is sawing through one of the tall stilts. This symbolises the deposing of the powerful person on the tall stilts. Significantly, it is the fact that the stilts are so tall that makes them vulnerable to being sabotaged.

The work can be seen as a metaphor for one of the relationships between the powerful and the less powerful.

It’s also quite funny.