Our exhibition will be part of a Global ‘VIGIL’ organised by 350.org

AS PART OF OUR ‘TUNNEL VISION TO COPENHAGEN EXHIBITION’ WE ARE COMBINING OUR PRIVATE VIEWING EVENING WITH A MUCH LARGER AND GLOBAL EVENT. WWW.350.ORG HAS ORGANIZED A GLOBAL CANDLE LIT VIGIL, WHERE PEOPLE ACROSS THE WORLD UNITE TO BRING TOGETHER THEIR DEMANDS FOR RAPID AND DRASTIC ACTION ON CUTTING EMISSIONS AND SLOWING CLIMATE CHANGE.
350.ORG is named after the Parts Per Million of Carbon dioxide which we need to get down to to aim for safety – 350ppm. We are currently at 389ppm and rising into the wrong direction.
(www.350.org)

THIS EVENT WILL BE CLOSE TO CHRISTMAS, SO WE EXPECT TOWN TO QUITE BUSY. WE HOPE PEOPLE WILL DROP IN. EVEN IF YOU DO NOT LIKE OUR ART WORK, I HOPE YOU APPRECIATE THAT WE ARE TRYING TO BRING IMPORTANT ISSUES TO OUR HOME TOWN.
THANK YOU

INFORMATION BELOW IS TAKEN FROM WWW.350.ORG – THE CLIMATE ACTION WEBSITE THAT IS COORDINATING THE GLOBAL VIGIL.

Here’s our sense of what will be happening at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, and why we’re hoping some of you will start or join a candlelight vigil at a strategic or iconic location in your community on Dec. 11th or 12th.

The weekend for these vigils falls smack in the middle of the two-week Copenhagen talks. President Obama just announced that he will visit Copenhagen on December 9th–and there’s no doubt that he’ll deliver a rousing and eloquent speech. The following day, December 10th, he’ll go on from Copenhagen to Norway to collect his Nobel prize.

We need to send a signal to say that speeches and prizes are good, but action is what’s really required–enough action to head us back towards 350 parts per million.

Obama will bring an emissions target to the table in Copenhagen, a bittersweet development in this political drama. Sweet because having any sort of commitment from the U.S. increases the chances of global collaboration on a climate deal, bitter because US emissions target represents a paltry 3% reductions below 1990 levels*–far from the ambitious cuts scientists say are necessary to get back to 350.

The United States now holds a big key to unlock this process, and we need Obama and the U.S. Congress to turn that key–which is why many of the candlelight vigils will take place at U.S. senate offices, and at U.S. embassies and consulates around the world.

The timing here is crucial: the vigils are part of a huge mobilization on the weekend of December 12th, mid-way through the negotiations. The climate talks will build to a head a few days later, as our allies and champions–people like President Nasheed of the Maldives–struggle to get a document that represents “a survival pact, not a suicide pact.” They have said repeatedly that their survival depends on getting back to 350, and it will help them immensely if delegates from other nations know that back home people are keeping up the pressure and demanding a real deal. I’ll be in Copenhagen on the weekend of December 12th to help organize a vigil with the 350.org team–and my hope is that you can join this effort by organizing a vigil locally.

Truth and Tribute – exhibition photos

TRUTH AND TRIBUTE – CURRENTLY STILL SHOWING AT HIVE GALLERY, ELSECAR HERITAGE CENTRE, BARNSLEY. 19TH NOVEMBER TO 13TH DECEMBER. OPEN 12-4PM THURSDAY TO SUNDAY

Works by John Ledger – the exhibition’s ‘man made’ representative.

Wall inspired work. (10 years since construction of own perpetual walls, 20 years since fall of Berlin Wall, 30 years since the release of ‘The Wall’ by Pink Floyd, 60 years since the Release of ‘1984’ by George Orwell)

The pre-planned, routine based nature to John’s work reflecting some of the underlying faults within the human condition.


Works by Bradley Sharp – the exhibition’s ‘nature’ representative

Darwin/evolution inspired work. (200 years since the Birth of Charles Darwin)

the intricate and automatic nature of Bradleys work reflecting the patterns of evolution, as nature changes shape to fit the environment it finds itself in.



‘Looking For Truth’ (2009 inside the book)

Solitary trip to the capital

On the London underground…

How can anyone be fully conscious and aware? in a city the size of London?; one moves so fast that it is virtually impossible to do so. There’s no long gaps between the trams, no places devoid of advertisements or ‘people a plenty’ (both of which require one to compare his/her lot physically or mentally – depending on what qualities that advert of facing person in question has), life is a clock and a race to be, either at work, or to be the best, at home relaxing or relaxing with friends – nothing is free to occur, nothing is free for the imagination.

But there again, who needs thoughts of this sort in a ultimately advanced capitalist city? all one needs is clocks and numbers, in fact that’s all one can afford to have, other thoughts get it the way of existing in such places – I even find this is true in much smaller cities, and my experience of London has confirmed that it must be doubly hard to think about things here.

In St Pancras Station, London

Is the task for the depressive to shakes one’s misery off by transferring it into creative output? Maybe all artists are depressives, but not all depressives are artists? but they could be.
Perhaps this is the depressives’ only saviour, as we – the depressives – know we cannot apply ourselves to anything else – not for any long period anyway. A depressive is an artist – even if it hasn’t been realised – and artists are incapable of living a normal life as such – one of a day job, and one accepting convention where, afterwards, enjoyment can be taken from time spent with people who are close to them.
A true artist is not an artist by choice; he/she is a born depressive – or at least, a depressive when they finally come into contact with the conventional human world – who’s artistic pursuits are the only thing keeping him/her from becoming utterly dysfunctional because of depression, especially dysfunctional in a modern industrial society.


Besides that fact there is simply a larger concentration of artists in heavily populated industrialized nations, perhaps these world’s of mechanical and mass products all around us, make an abundance of terminal depressives, who need to find a ‘voice’ within THE SPRAWL. This would explain the reason why there is so many artists, so many musicians, so many in the field of the arts, putting themselves ‘out there’ in such societies as our own – an advanced capitalist society, of mass produced consumer goods.
Ok, they won’t all ‘make it’ but this won’t stop them, as they cannot stop – not without becoming utterly dysfunctional depressives.

On the train, London to Sheffield

What am I thinking?!; the weak will never inherit the earth. I am weak; I am of weak mind. No matter how many ‘clever’ things I think about, I am destined, by my posture and mental wiring’s, to go nowhere, lose all my teeth and end up lonely.
This isn’t self pitying, believe me; it is ‘clear goggles’ thinking about myself, which says “you’ve been dreaming in a destiny all your life which will never be yours, no matter how clever some of your ideas may be. You are of weak mind when it comes to dealing with real life and its tasks”.

Written word has such a different affect on others to that of the spoken word/words in conversation, which means that hopefully people who know me can understand me more from my writings, as opposed to my ‘jellified’ manner, when in a conversation. In a conversation these thoughts would come across as melodramatic and self pitying; in written word what I am saying here is more likely to be seen as very honest.
I am sat here on the train, half panic-battered because I cannot cope with people – So I went to London by myself. However, I cannot function properly by myself either, i.e. going to food places, seeing stuff etc, are things I find impossible to undertake by myself. So, all I do is eternally drift through life. The production of art work is my only rock in this never ending sea of confusion and dissolution.

“The Show Must Go on!”

“The Show Must Go On!”, 120X80cm, biro on paper

“We must get capitalism back on track! The show must go on!” Who is saying this?

Whenever ‘growth’ is mentioned, in talk about when this recession will lift, it is seen as an absolute good. However, economic growth means growth in construction and expansion. Expansion needs space and resources, but everybody who has taken the time to think about this, knows that the earth, our only home, simply doesn’t have the resources or space to support more growth, without using up all the natural environment, leaving us with no food to eat and no air to breathe – enough said.

Who is encouraging growth and why?

This piece may look more like a medieval depiction of Hell, but the ideas are firmly based on the present. ‘The show must go on’ portrays the final outcome of humanity, if it carries on under this corporate Capitalist system, consuming way too much of the Earths remaining resources, leading to environmental catastrophe and war between nations competing for the limited supplies. All, except the rich elite who may buy their way out of disaster zones, are sleep walking into an inferno.

I have always portrayed the ‘rich elite’ as baby birds sat on a nest of money, ruthlessly competitive for as much as they can get, kicking smaller and weaker ones out of the nest, so that they can have all. They point the way up the stairway.

the show must go on

The law enforcers blindly obey the system, and only have eyes for making sure the system runs smoothly. I portray them as ‘surveillance beings’, nothing but cameras, monitoring the masses for the benefit of the powerful.

The rest of us are too trapped by time and our need for a wage to buy the essentials that are not available in any other way, to do anything but follow ‘the route’. There’s no room for a worthwhile debate on alternatives, there’s no room to act on our questioning of ‘where this is all going’. All we can do is drape ourselves in fashion accessories and do our best to express our individuality through the limited range of consumer produce. We may have concerns about where the system, thirsty for resources is going but we also feel lucky to live a relatively comfortable life.

This life is NOT available to all. In the ditches of this image, is a World purposefully out of view from the ‘consumers’, who occupy the clean stairway. Here lies the first World homeless and underclass, and also the Third World, ravaged by war, deliberately obscured from sight by the powers that benefit from an unequal World.

Here, the law enforcers appear again, only this time their methods are more violent, watching out and suppressing anyone and anything that stands in the way of Capitalism. Conflict over remaining resources and environmental disaster, hits here first, but it will also hit the first World sooner or later.

The resulting, long term effects of ‘getting Capitalism back on track’, to the production level of the past 2 decades (and more) would mean certain death for millions, possibly billions of people, from various outcomes brought on by a sickened planet. Of course, all this writing is very biased to my own views, and I know that I too am in no way a leader in sustainable living, but the presence of a certainty that ‘something isn’t quite right with all this’ persists within me, with every thought and action I take.

The Show must go on (image 1) (2)

I want to live under system where I do not have to be wasteful when I need food and drink, a system where the idea of buying better clothes and other material gains isn’t directly linked with having a better life and being a better person. A system I can live under, where I can wake up in the morning, without the constant, niggling thoughts of ‘how long do we have until all this starts to collapse?’.

Though I have plentiful reason to believe that rampant consumerism on a sickened planet has rendered my person incapable of doing anything but expressing protest through artwork, the fact that I have energy to create work shows that I still have hope that our species can turn itself around from its collision course with both itself and planet Earth.

One has to believe that a fairer and more sustainable system will be born out of an adaptation which forces us to respect the Earth, and each other, more. One day, perhaps the ‘us and them’ could be better used to label the difference between a fierce patriot and a humanist, rather than the divide between rich and poor.

Also, I must add that my artwork is completely useless if people look at it and do not see themselves in these ‘landscapes of people’. We have to believe humanity can find a better way, Capitalism cannot work on a crowded planet, and the idea of the individual in a Consumer society is false, the chain stores and the commercialisation of television are making us less individual.

The Show must go on (image 2)

The Alpha Forest

Artwork currently being displayed as part of ‘Emergence’ an exhibition in Barnsley Town Centre, until 5 September 2009

The Alpha Forest (2009, mixed media)

The ‘Alpha Forest’ is a global hegemony, anything different living in the forest, anything not following the route, cannot survive. All the hands point up competing to be the best, the pyramids of the global corporations dominate and are pushed to the top by the forest. The drawing portrays an eventual extinction of the human race in its blinkered pursuit of power and wealth. Corporate Capitalism, as a World order, will lead to the destruction of civilisation.

Further reading…

Being a lover of woodland, I have never been enthusiastic about plantation woodlands (woodland planted by man for consumption) even though I see the importance of these woods. I see these woods, of straight and tightly packed trees, as a metaphor for the modern human world, where everyone is striving and competing for the dreams held up by the consumerist frameworks that surround us. I saw the self-seeded deciduous trees in the forest, twisting and turning in their struggle to survive and realised that, like the plantations, the system we live under is also blocking out all light for anything else to survive.The original idea for the man made forest started as a metaphor for my home town, and mine, and my friends’, feelings of alienation from the herd mentality. However I didn’t have the chance to pin this idea entirely on my home town because it soon became clear that the metaphor applied to the whole of the modern western World. We in the first world are being sucked into this competitive hegemony, dragging the third world down even further; down into this capitalist society where everyone is striving to be first and competing for more success, whether it is the perfect career or the perfect acquisition that is forever elusive, all of us believing, through the images we have been shown, that we will find our happy ending. Even people who are not chasing the perfect still have to compete in the forest, just for the means to survive, which is the unbending rule under this system. In this drawing there are block coloured pyramids towering above the forest of hands. These metaphorical structures are of an imagined -near future- world where super-corporations (each colour representing a certain corporate chain) have finally killed off all the competition from smaller and alternative businesses, making the population consumer slaves to their products. All the forest hands are tainted with a colour featured on the pyramid layers. These the different ‘categories’ people reside under that are tended for and tamed by the major consumer chains. Here in our found categories we are quite happy to be labelled, fed opinions and loosely controlled. The mounds under the drawing are the fossil remains of man-made waste, sedimentary layers of trash. I wanted the mounds to be a continuous layer underneath the drawing, but I simply didn’t have the space to do this. However after making my first mound, I realised their shape was similar to sandstone pillars marking the entrance to a park/woodland. I thought that the mounds could be the gateway to the forest, whilst also still being the sedimentary remains of the human species, the pillars of our existence. Hidden inside cave-like areas in the mounds are small drawings, they are a reference to my own lack of confidence -not being an adequate competitor in the alpha race – as these are a lot of the things I really want to say. The sketch drawings carry the bulk of my creative energy; they are the works I never believe are quite good enough; what I want to say the most rarely gets to see the light of day – hopes that have died in vain. 

All through my adult life I have been trying to resist joining a system that I knew would eventually drain me. This is a system that I have been told I have to be part of because “no other way works”, a world where I either give myself up and follow a ‘designated dream’ or I become another commodity.

The web of corporate Capitalism is stretching out across the entire world, rendering all alternatives obsolete. People usually associate the ideas of totalitarianism with strict communist states such as North Korea but I think that the global capitalist system is also doing a good job at delivering its own form of totalitarianism; in fact it is probably the finest method of controlling people. As long as it caters for mainstream and alternative tastes, making everybody ‘feel’ individual, and it throws around enough junk media information to dilute our attentions, the main questions concerning our real freedoms are will not be asked, or If and when they are, will not be heard.We, the people, have no real choice as to what kind of system we live under or what it does in the near future -such as the wars it takes our countries into and creating more ‘national security paranoia’ – we only have a choice in what materials and trinkets we drape ourselves in, in order to feel special and to express our ‘status’ in the forest of people. However, although consumerism works so well as a controlling method, it is doing considerable damage to the planet on which we all live, and if left unchallenged, may be our undoing. 

Though I feel alienated in the modern world, I am certainly not immune to the lures of consumerism. This awareness is a constant hurting, as I see my own part in the destruction of the Earth. There is no ‘holier than thou’ undercurrent here; my concerns are borne from my own failings as much as any other. People on a whole are not strong enough to resist the tentacles of consumerism and neither am I. A truly worthwhile switch from our current system will probably not occur until the people at the top of the corporate chain are either mortally or severely financially threatened, which would most probably be brought on by the effects of climate change. The change could happen soon, now would be a perfect time to challenge the global system, but being as the richest countries in the world are so keen on getting Capitalism ‘back on track’ to how it was before, it is probable that change will not come until it is too late for many of us lower down the chain. This drawing is my strongest explanation of why I dislike our current system of Capitalism and how close it is to delivering us into totalitarianism and environmental destruction. It is in no way a cry for Socialism and isn’t an attempt to encourage anyone to join a particular party or group; nobody owes their allegiances to anyone or anything. I just cannot see how the current system of Capitalism can continue to exploit the Worlds’ resources without utterly disastrous affects for us all. 

finished 6

Global Pillage

 Global Pillage, ballpoint pen on paper, 70X115cm

This is the Easter Island Catastrophe but on a global scale. Each Nation eating up its own land and resources, connected by a hegemonic paradigm – perpetuated to the masses through global communication, yet disconnected through increasingly nationalistic and far right politics, caused as conflict begins to rise over who should have access to the decreasing resources on Earth.

Very much inspired by the Gaia theory, I see the human urban landscape as a replica of natures own working systems, yet ours (Gaia 2) just feeds off the land, and gives nothing back in return. These huge tree-like structures mutate into the shape of power stations as their roots turn into roads and tunnels, like the clogged up arteries of an individual, as one entire species begins to outdo itself.

The Sprawl: Drawings based on the land of people. April 18th – May 31st. Thurs-Sun 12-4pm.

This exhibition is a ‘installationalised’ selection of drawings covering the social landscape; the urbanization and takeover of the natural land and the methods of control over its inhabitants. The centerpiece is The Sprawl, an expansive paper drawing; incorporated around the shape of half of my bedroom (hence the unusual shape) colonizing all workable surfaces in the manner of a expanding city. An expression of a how the city becomes one giant super organism, although separate and hazardous towards Earths working life systems. All the inhabitants, their cars and trains are like the blood running through the veins keeping the city alive.

The Sprawl

  Waking Up (Part of The Sprawl installation)

Central Bombardment

People Factory

Three Tiers of a Sinking Ship