At Home Far Away

When Steph and I first arrived in Switzerland from Australia (3 years ago) we got the phone connected in the house, as well as mobile phones and internet etc. I put the new, Swiss simcard in my phone and was storing phone numbers. I decided to enter the phone number from our house and I asked Steph "What shall we call this place?". She looked at me quizzically and replied "Home?". "Yes, of course, "home"".

As the first album (Escape) was about escaping, this one's about what you do post-escape - when you arrive in the place you escape to. Home.


At Home Far Away -
The idea being a 3-fold meaning: I'm at home when I'm in a place far away from where I am at this moment, or, I'm at home in a place which is far away from where you (the listener) is, or I'm really happiest when I'm lost in my thoughts, ideas and dreams.

If I was going to take a photograph of it, I would have a close-up of someone wearing mirror sunglasses, with a background of snow-covered mountains, and a reflection in the sunglasses of a sandy beach - but that's kinda too literal and obvious.

People take their countries with them when they move. Europeans couldn't paint Australian plants, animals or landscapes for at least a generation. As we get older we get more and more out if touch with the outside world as the inner world fills up with memories, habits impressions. of an increasingly distant time... ok I'm rambling now, but if there were some way of showing the giant discrepancy between what is around someone and what is in their head, certain things would be massively magnified whilst other normally huge things are rendered small and insignificant by comparison.
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So that was the brief, and the background.

What did I come up with? 7 different sketches to try and show in pictures what people carry with them when they go away from home.


The idea here is that as everyone journeys through life, (the flying) they both take and are directed by their past (the balloons).

And the reaction? "I love the one with the people in various phases of being carried away by their balloons - brilliant!!" And later after all the idea sketches made it over to Switzerland (thankyou to whoever invented email), "The idea I love the most is the one with the balloons dragging people around - but the balloons to me seem more like people's dreams, desires, destinies, which take them far and wide, and which also, depending on their size take them 'up in the clouds', with their feet off the ground."

It's very cool. It's too Swiss though, with the title it's gonna look like I love living in Switzerland. It would work for the inside cover, but can you do an Aussie one for the outside?


Ta da!

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Then it all changed.
The title for the album (and the theme) shifted. The CD is now called, "Notes From Land". The feeling theme moved to the feeling of being in the wrong place, of being wrenched away. So the balloons had to be changed to birds and the people to bloody fish. Of course! Thankyou to whoever invented Photoshop!

So the result is that these two custom paintings representing people's dreams, desires and destinies, which take them far and wide, need an appreciative home of their own. Sound like you?

The facts: two lovely mixed media paintings (gouche, ink, pencil, collage) on 290gsm canvas paper. Each image is sized 355 x 155mm on an A3 sheet. Finished with matte varnish for artwork protection. Available now in the WhereFishSing official art store. Available separately, or get a discount for the pair! Go on...