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The images of this curious tree come form a recent series of paintings of objects and incidents found in the woods at the back of the house in which I grew up. Things grow, happen, deform, decay or are destroyed by the unseen hands of fate and assorted local loners, council workers and little shits. This tree has grown out of and into itself and over the years I've come to call it the Fuck You Fuck Me Tree. A testament to the magic of the everyday it stands like some hermaphrodite that has slipped silently from the pages of Ovid's Metamorphosis or two forbidden lovers succumbed to Puck's potion (or most likely two litres of white cider and a whiff of araldite from a plastic bag) and held forever in a private embrace.
In these prints the tree has become separated in two; The Fuck You Fuck Me Tree and The Fuck Me Fuck You Tree. On reflection this is some reference to the funny Push Me Pull You creature in Dr. Doolitlle. They were trapped, going nowhere, neither forward nor back, damned to repeat the present to the laughter of the world around them. I found some empathy with the process of image reversal in the actual printmaking process which suitably confused which way round I was looking at the tree until it didn't seem to matter anymore. Either way it was fucked. Is this what we've come to know as Pathetic Fallacy?
George Shaw, Feb 2014
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