Just finished this mythologically seditious poster. If you're not familiar with the story, it's said that if the ravens leave the Tower of London the British Empire will fall and the monarchy will collapse. There are a minimum of 6 ravens in the Tower at all times, with one 'spare'. Their wings are clipped to keep them off balance so they can't fly away. I'm doing some limited edition prints, available here.
Extended Bayuex Tapestry: Bloody Sunday.
Bloody Sunday was a massacre on 30th January 1972 in Derry, Northern Ireland, when British soldiers from the Parachute Regiment shot 26 unarmed civilians during a civil rights protest march. 14 people died, 7 of them teenagers. Many of the victims were shot while fleeing from the soldiers, and some were shot while trying to help the wounded. Other protesters were injured by shrapnel, rubber bullets or batons, and two were run down by army vehicles.
The initial tribunal into the killings was a whitewash and exonerated the soldiers of any wrongdoing, claiming the protesters had been armed. Decades later the Saville Inquiry (no relation) found the killings had been unjustified and unjustifiable.
As of 2020 only one soldier (Soldier F) is to face charges for the massacre.
You may remember I painted the below image last year and auctioned the original on ebay to raise money for the anti-whale hunting charity Sea Shepherd UK. It was inspired by the actual signs Japanese whalers hold up while they’re being photographed poaching whales in the South Atlantic.
But there was a problem; that charity auction was sabotaged, deliberately, and not by a pro-whaler, but by an anti-trans activist who was furious I didn’t want to talk to him about his horrible anti-trans opinions anymore.
He put in the highest bid, then refused to pay, all so he could write a negative review, which is deleted by ebay anyway if a bidder doesn’t pay so the whole exercise was pointless and hurt nobody except a few sea creatures.
This confused me. What on earth did anti-trans activists have against whales? Do terfs hate whales now too?
But then I realised: it’s because the ocean is a gender-neutral toilet, and they’re furious about it.
So I decided to do another whale painting (above), and I’ll be auctioning this one off for the UK trans charity Sparkle, as well a re-auctioning the first painting for Sea Shepherd UK. I’m running both auctions on ebay now. 100% of the final selling price goes towards each charity.
Links:
I'm also doing the gender-neutral toilet image as a limited-edition print with 50% of proceeds going to Sparkle.