Hammers, along with other handyman tools, are a frequent motif in my work.
In this sketch a hammerhead forms the head of a person. The person is leaning forward and is looking at some nails that have been hammered into the ground.
A person with a hammer as a head in an artwork would normally be thought of as a symbol of oppression, however this particular person doesn’t look that much like an oppressor to me. But then again, oppressors don’t have to look like oppressors do they? This one looks almost surprised to see the nails. What’s his relationship with the nails?
A digital visualisation of a proposed mural on an art gallery wall.
The mural depicts two men standing on stilts. One of the men has much taller stilts than the other man. The man with the shorter stilts is sawing through one of the tall stilts.
The image is partly a metaphor for power and attacks on that power. It’s also just a funny idea.
The image can be interpreted as a metaphor for political power and opposition to that power. The person on the tall stilts is invested with the power while the person with the short stilts is wanting to topple the person in the position of power (as an act of rebellion against political oppression, military repression, economic exploitation or one of any number of engines of social or political inequality).
The power that is personified in the image needn’t necessarily be the power of large scale institutions and entities, but could also be the power gained at an interpersonal level by an individual who has status enhancing qualities such as an appealing personality or striking good looks, making the attacks on that individual the consequence of personal envy or resentment.
The man on the tall stilts represents a person in a position of high status or power. The structure of that power (the tall stilts) however makes him isolated from people with less power (the shorter stilts). This flaw makes him vulnerable to attacks from below, especially if the person below has a metaphorical saw.
I’ve used a cartoon-like quality for the image is because the cartoon medium is the perfect way to convey the concept in the image. I think that cartoons are an excellent medium for political or social comment art as they can convey concepts directly and unambiguously. I’ve drawn cartoons for publication in newspapers, magazines and books since the 1970s. You can see my cartoons here.
The large photograph on the wall in the visualisation is from a series of studies of skulls.
Shown in the ING Discerning Eye exhibition in the Mall Galleries, London, November 2024.
This sculpture, composed of a hammer and nails, symbolises the act of the oppressed overthrowing their oppressor. The nails represent the oppressed and the hammer represents their oppressor.
The metaphor raises a few questions . How did the nails become driven into the hammer? By another hammer? If so, is that other hammer a potential oppressor? Is the (unseen) second hammer just an oppressor in its own right, simply using the nails for its own ends?
The Oppressor Empaled. A sculpture about oppression.
Hammer, nails, wood. 18x34x26cm. May 2023.
This sculpture was shown in the ING Discerning Eye exhibition in the Mall Galleries, London, November 2024. It is a work of political art, in the form of a metaphor for oppression and rebellion. The work shows a hammer empaled by nails. Part of the concept behind the sculpture is that the hammer is being impaled by the objects that it normally hits – the nails. The hammer is a symbol of oppression and dictatorship and the nails are symbols of the oppressed. But the sculpture poses a question – how did the nails manage to drive themselves into the hammer? Nails by their nature need a hammer, or a stand-in for a hammer, in order to be effective and to fulfil their purpose. Were the nails hammered into the hammer by another hammer? In that case the nails are not a metaphor for the oppressed rising up against their oppressor (the hammer) using their own power, but are more like the followers of another power (another hammer?) that may turn out to be as oppressive as the hammer that they’ve empaled.
The leaders of liberation movements against repression often become oppressors or dictators in their turn.
This sculpture is a development of an idea that I had in 2010 when it started life as a drawing of a hammer with three nails driven into it. Since then it developed into a 3D sculptural work composed of a hammer nailed directly onto a flat surface as though pinned down. The iteration here has the hammer suspended above a surface and with many more nails driven into it so that it’s starting to resemble a nail fetish figure.
