The Island

The Island Paradise

Acrylic on 180mm X 130mm (7" X 5") Board

This picture is meant to be a postcard size picture that you would always carry around with you to constantly remind you not of your sweetheart but paradise. The picture's impressionalist nature is to indicate that nobody has any clear idea of what paradise is let alone what it looks like.

Since no one has actually been able to describe paradise I have taken the liberty of using what on earth often seems to constitute paradise, an idyllic tropical island. This is of course exactly what the technicians in the film "The Island" did. By mentally implanting and reinforcing a desire for "The Island" they managed to keep the inmates subdued and focused waiting patiently for their turn to go to "The Island". Furthermore, by telling the inmates how lucky they were having been spared from the now toxically dangerous outside world they were so grateful that no one ever considered questioning anything they were ever told. Their own minds had become the bars.

The picture is not actually of an island but rather a vista that implies that you are there sitting on tropical island beach perusing the mandatory blue sky, reef and coconut in the water. I am giving a tacit delusion of an island paradise without identifying anything about it. This is exactly what the world's religions continually espouse because it is what we all want to believe. They may well be right. Total peace, harmony and tranquillity where everything is perfect, is of course directly akin to nothing at all!