Nicholas Vaughan | My Kingdom For A Croissant | Friday 12th January 2021 | 6:30pm

BREXIT COLLAGES

My Kingdom for a Croissant

This refers to the UK’s departure from the EU, and it is seen by a croissant being held up ironically as if waving goodbye, and as a symbol of the friendship which has lasted many years, and which is about to be severed in favour of reigniting and strengthening old colonial and commonwealth relationships again. 

A politician trying to ingratiate himself with local Muslim and Sikh communities wears a turban, from out of which on one side sprouts an extension to his headwear, where a heavily burdened down slave, weighed down by his load, stands awaiting more orders for action. To his side one hand in a boxing glove hangs down, whilst in the other a warmongers toy is held aloft, that of a nuclear weapon.

Migrant workers bombard ‘Leave’ party candidates with cabbages, to mock the countries immigration policy, which is being tightened up, and will eventually leave them with no jobs.  The country needs these types of workers the most right now during the pandemic, and the irony of being sent back only to be asked to return, demonstrates how much the government is out of touch with the economical reality of the country.

This work is for sale or available for print at Graffik Gallery, an urban arts commercial space in central London. You can see it here.

Windrush Scandal Shrunken Brains

This shows the flow of migrants back to America during times of colonialization, either through slavery or to repopulate jobs. They represent the influx of people into colonial North America, and to the Windrush Generation who were invited into the UK for the same reason. The Windrush Scandal has developed since the Brexit referendum, and has culminated with people of African/Caribbean heritage being asked to return to their home countries. The shrunken heads are based on UKIP and Tory leaders who have had their brains decreased in size to show the small mindedness of their actions. In the background an immigrant has been shot in the foot by Brexit, the whole process pushing people and workers out of our lands.

This work is for sale or available for print at Graffik Gallery, an urban arts commercial space in central London. You can see it here.

Class War Flashers

Hordes of ‘Welcome’ and ‘Go Away’ electorates are surrounded by ‘Leave’ and ‘UKIP’ politicians, as they are frogmarched to vote in ballot boxes which bear an exact resemblance to themselves. This echoed the recent Brexit referendum where voters were targeted through Facebook, by finding out what issues they considered worrying, then bombarding them with ads to vote for people who would put an end to this. They are anti-social and from one side expose themselves and urinate, whilst others threaten to give you a bellyful of lead, to the front one runs screaming with a raised stonecutter in the air. A politician dangles from a high wire in front of an egotistical mountain-scape of his own reflections. To one side amidst the workings and rope the shaft of an old coal mine stretches to its deepest point, and at the foot the figure of Gulliver lays tied down, the mascot of the theme park that was set to open in 2020/21, in an effort to regenerate an old coalfield community and its site.

The work uses news media imagery, its monochrome, mixed media collage, satirical with urban/street arts. The overall compositions are busy and playful, they use images that are printed using inkjet, and intended to give that graininess of old photographs, the collage is there but because its beneath layers it becomes more surreal. In the darker sections where you have shadows, you get this weird ghostly look, but the lighter areas are always shown as white, and this stipples the whole work, its not coming from one source but many, a very unnatural look as if lit like a sundial from many angles throughout the day.  

This work is for sale or available for print at Graffik Gallery, an urban arts commercial space in central London. You can see it here.

Promised Land Stowaway

The journey of the immigrant, piling onto lorries at Calais, sneaking through at customs, long trips by road secured in the most inhumane of transports, to arrive at a place where they need to run for their lives. Along the way some are lost in the capsizing of a craft halfway across the channel, some make it by a miraculous feat, whilst others are picked up and taken away to the refugee camp ‘Sangatte’. After negotiating a maze with border control in hot pursuit to symbolize the difficulty of their struggle and passage, they arrive at a ‘Vote Leave’ poster fixed to a pierhead, before encountering an even more unwelcoming sight, that of Farage’s infamous billboard outlining the many different nationalities of people that are currently attempting to make UK their home, and that will soon be barred. A few slip through but only the ones the government is willing to admit we need, such as agricultural workers in the midst of a pandemic, and the rest are left to face long queues outside jobcentres, waiting for their immigrant status to be declared, and meanwhile subsisting on very little.

In the image of ‘Promised Land Stowaway’, you get this papercut outline, such as on the figures on the pier in the centre, it gives them a clean feel, shapes with white halos around them that give focus to their centre. The image varies from being very recognizable, such as in the bushes on the centre right, to disintegrating into mad explosions of paint, you can see the process of making where scraps of white show through the image. There is a line of perspective on the bottom right as people walk down the street and past the job centre, filing into a waiting lorry, which then carries on above, as a line of traffic flowing into the distance.

This work is for sale or available for print at Graffik Gallery, an urban arts commercial space in central London. You can see it here.

Rocket Fuel for a Nation

A politician glides down a high wire and comes to a standstill above a sea of junk, swaying lazily over an anti-Brexit gun in the mouth sculpture of an unpopular leader. Meanwhile a scrap grabber starts to pick up mouthfuls of slowly decomposing and rusting metalwork, which is taken in the skilled hands of a migrant worker, and with a few deft turns of his hand produces a rocket fuel engine. Along with the contribution that workers make to the country, harvesting crops, working in warehouses and on production lines, his efforts and those of many around him are not held in great esteem by those currently in power in the UK.

In ‘Rocket Fuel for a Nation’ there is an echoing of images to the left, the top, and the bottom, all showing that repetition that is noticeable in production lines. The overall collage is very dynamic, all the action runs into the bottom left hand corner where a worker is depositing a load, and a grappling arm drops off a hulk of mangled metals into a crusher. There is a chain of workers passing mostly agricultural goods between themselves, the image is of a perfect communist society, picking and harvesting, good cooperation, and great harmony. The arm comes out from the top corner where we have May and Johnson, and brings with it the chaos and disorganization of Brexit, as well as its more self-centred side, keen to break off ties with the E.U, and only wanting to keep migrants for their own good. 

This work is for sale or available for print at Graffik Gallery, an urban arts commercial space in central London. You can see it here.

Tunnel of Tusks

Hornless Dumbos fly around and around searching for their missing ivory teeth, meanwhile the appropriation of poached and traded goods goes on, security guards stand watch over mounds of precious ivory to prevent it from being turned into small ornaments and other artworks. Each time they flap their gigantic ears that act as wings and pass over once again, they look beneath them to see recently slaughtered bodies of elephants still huge and beautiful, being guarded by a proud killer. 

A ‘tunnel of love’ themed ivory tusk ride keeps bobbing small boats down a river, to and through a gate that looms in the background, overlooked by a giants head with wrinkled trunk and orifices, beckoning its former friend to come and pay a visit to the elephants graveyard.

In the corner an old colonial elephant stands, with two children sat upon its back in an old-style carriage, it shudders at the memory of the killing trade and how things have never really changed, a background of smoking and burning pyres, and the knowledge that elephants today are usually born tuskless. 

In ‘Tunnel of Tusks’ there is a waviness of lines, that feeling of motion, many elephants due to the many angles of imagery, circling around on one merry go round, the painted surface brings them to a more uniform finish, but one which is still fragmentary. There’s narrative which leads you around the picture, imagery changes, one of the elephant carriages floats under a whole pyre of tusks, that feeling of dreaminess returns and of a lone rider going out on his own, or an elephant returning to its spiritual home.

This work has been selected for stage 2 of the John Moore’s Painting Prize, and is for sale and available for print at Graffik Gallery, an urban arts commercial space in central London. You can see it here.

Death of Migrant Worker

The dead body of an immigrant worker has been converted into a theme park ride with a Brexit head at its top. There is a parade of imperialistic kings, queens, and other medieval livery who are queueing to get on, and as they wait, they start prodding and probing him to try to figure out his political persuasion. His boots continue to rotate until one is stopped, and on closer inspection by a pathologist officer, who is trying to work out the exact cause of death, soon realizes they are the bones of the man’s foot, but that also looks like the skeleton of a recently exhumed migrant worker, from the site of an agricultural farm nearby.

This work is for sale or available for print at Graffik Gallery, an urban arts commercial space in central London. You can see it here.

Hound Dog Whistler

In this image Farage leads the chase on a trapped immigrant, he is pictured in customary hunting garb, peaked hat and clutching a noose for trapping animals, he is giving a call to arms for nationalist groups such as the BNP. 

During colonial times, the hunt would have been focused on safari beasts for their prized aspect as game trophies, their existence for those who passed their time by killing and maiming for leisure. Through poaching; big cat skins, elephant tusks, and other vital organs often pertained to increase male virility would often be procured, usually hitting the markets of the smaller commonwealth countries through black market sources, and reaching the locals who were happy to slug down the potent brew, in the hope that this would give them the confidence to sew their seeds and knock seven bells out of the local immigrant population.

In the UK long since hunting has been carried out by aristocratic groups, Tories and the far right, with no plans to scale back this barbaric activity, only to allow it further, even in the midst of the corona virus outbreak, allowing larger than normal groups to gather, whilst other types of collective sports were banned.

‘Hound Dog Whistler’ features simplified forms such as landscapes, hills and mountains, with the heavy definition of a wood cut, whereas in other areas it is  much more defined, you get a real sense of the collage showing itself from beneath. Some places are very deep, but then you have zones where it is flat, even minimal, such as with the men hunting elephants at the bottom. There is sparse detail, shadows give a menacing tone, such as around the bottom of Farage’s hand at the top right, blacks and whites contrast, there is drama. At the bottom of Gulliver’s feet one image fades into another, and you do not even notice it, they both merge into complete blackness, the transition is very abrupt. 

This work is for sale or available for print at Graffik Gallery, an urban arts commercial space in central London. You can see it here.

Tally Ho Totem

‘Tally Ho’ is a phrase used by many British and commonwealth military personnel in the 19th and 20th centuries that means ‘charge’, it is also used by the aristocratic during fox hunts, of which the current Tory government is fond of and allows to continue. The overall look of the structure includes ‘Vote Leave’ and Brexit politicians, as well as animals that have been hunted for their skins and for their sport. These are stuffed animals, game trophies on plaques and other beasts from that imperialistic era such as elephants with their regal decoration. Some of the beasts are hybrids combining human and animal, and one includes the skull to represent death, which is shown again by a creature that would have been extinct, the mammoth, this one too has been combined with the spirit of the Tories to convey that their ideologies are outdated and should also be extinct.

In the heavy column that dominates the image, and runs through the centre of ‘Tally Ho Totem’, I’ve aimed to give it as much shadow as possible to give it a disturbing feel, there is a lack of light generally in the tower, so this helps in giving it more of weight. The hybrids have been painted to give a feel of seamlessness, so it is more difficult to differentiate between the two. The composition of the image includes a section to the bottom left, where the perspective of the street runs up steeply, and on the right this is mirrored by an escalator running into stairs, with more bricked up alleys and dead ends, stopping abruptly at an office for border control.

This work is for sale or available for print at Graffik Gallery, an urban arts commercial space in central London. You can see it here.

Brexit Brain Ghost Train

Mount Rushmore was designed and built by a white supremacist ‘Gutzon Borglum’, he was a racist and had connections with the far-right group the Ku Klux Klan. In the UK now we are going through a similar situation in respect to Brexit, the rise of this political party, its extremist views, and aiming to rid the country of immigrants and other minority parties. 

In the image we see workers descending the face of one of the presidents to carry out some form of construction, the whole precipice of rock is being supported by a tower of Brexit heads. These reference the way that racism and this new political system are inextricably linked, one violent event leading to another in a very depressing way, such as when the referendum took place, and in Harlow, Essex a Polish man was killed in a so called hate crime. 

Brexit will cause divide in the UK between people and communities, on all levels of the political spectrum. It will cause further rifts between rich and poor too, mostly due to the fact that traditionally Labour and Tory voters have different viewpoints and respective actions with regards to immigration, wealthy people will always tend to vote one way whilst those in the lower classes will vote another.

Things have been going from bad to worse since the Windrush scandal and now the home secretary’s new law to tighten up borders, by targeting petty thieves and promising to deport immigrants if they shoplift or pickpocket, this is just another way to show that migrants aren’t welcome here anymore.

Black paint is used with a light touch, for highlighting, small details as well as lines and paring things down a lot. The imagery is industrial, constructivist, two towers combining a heavy contrast of flesh and iron, the marks float on the surface because they have this great depth behind them of the tone, and it gives this sandwiching effect, one more heavy and on top of the other, and to the back a more subdued level, flatter, softer. The black lines give it a lot of action, like abstract expressionism and the action paintings of Pollock, they fill everything with movement, making things shake and vibrate, and it’s a result of the flicking technique I use to put the paint on, this gives evidence of its application.

This work is for sale or available for print at Graffik Gallery, an urban arts commercial space in central London. You can see it here.

Sculpture Group

This I read in a recent article on satirical comedy, and thought it was a good way to describe what I am aiming for in my work.

Some comedians seem to have confused the thrill of the taboo with a childish impulse to offend, and mistaken bullying for bravery. “Just because you’re offended, doesn’t mean you’re right,” is one of Ricky Gervais’s most popular quotes.

I understand I’ll offend some people with the sculptural works I’m making at the moment, which I have used a range of offensive comments made by Boris Johnson towards minority races, combining these with other imagery taken from the mixed media collage pieces, to create. They all made from a selection of carved polystyrene, cork, balsa, matches, AstroTurf, aquarium stones and hessian.

The title of the project is ‘My Kingdom for a Croissant’, and this was taken from an image of Boris holding a well-known French pastry up in the air and offering his own leadership on the matter of the E.U, questioning our relationship with Europe and asking the question, do we really want this anymore? 

These works will form part of an installation that is being planned for next year now, after the exhibition has been postponed due to Covid, it was supposed to open in November 2020 and run until February 2021, instead there will be a virtual opening on the Basement Arts Project website later this month.

The mixed media pieces are a series of 10 and explore this theme further, as well as that of the other major themes, migration, and a return to colonization through Brexit. These were made by developing a text which I then used to take images from by researching online, working up into collage form, then finishing in acrylic paint, each using narrative in a different way. One of the works ‘Tunnel of Tusks’ has just been selected for the John Moore’s Painting Prize opening in February and running until June.

Burkah Flasher Brick Thrower

This is a figurative sculpture of somebody that is exposing themselves but in a very brash and unashamed way, a bright pink neon pair of boxers with bold green AstroTurf hearts is worn. This fake grass is something very familiar, we see it everywhere, but it repels us with its plasticness. The interior of the jacket lures you in further as another secret of the deep to be discovered, and the delights of the lunchbox contained within. 

The top section plays heavily against this and uses a comment that compared women in burkah’s to letterboxes, this makes up the head whilst the body below is flashing, in this I see a crossover of cultures which I think is particularly relevant in our society today, a closure and an exposure. The raised bricks are a tribute to the construction of the new Gulliver’s Theme Park at the Rother Valley, partly built from the same material of OBS board itself, but they also represent far right violence in their appearance as a weapon of looting and rioting.

 Bestiality Bride

This one is half human, half beast, is wearing a bridal crown and not much else, and aims to show man's shame at being in a relationship with an animal, taken from Bo-Jo's fear of the same thing. It has its reproductive organs out to attract marital partners of all persuasions more freely, but is also suffering a rash all over its body which could be off putting too, to make matters worse it is peeing freely in the street just to show a lack of respect for society, and an overall anti-social manner towards people in general.

 Windrush Migrant Totems

Another is the ‘Windrush Migrant Totems’ of which there is 2 and which will stand at both sides of the arrangement, they show the flow of migrants back to America during times of colonialization, either through slavery or to repopulate jobs. They represent the influx of people into colonial North America, either through slavery or low job workforce and here I make a link into the Windrush generation who were invited into the UK to fill gaps in the workforce.

The skin on the faces has been made to look as if a scalping has been carried out by a native red Indian, parts of the head peeled back before growing again, masses of scar lines showing defined by the edges of the cork, and the nails showing how stitches would have been used to try to sew the tissue together. 

There’s an opposition between the seriousness of the top half, with its very straight laced expression and its hooked nose, in juxtaposition with the lower section that exudes playfulness, illuminous aquarium stones that have been used to give an indication of aquatic life.

On Friday 12th February 2021 BasementArtsProject launched ‘My Kingdom For A Croissant’ our first 3D online gallery exhibition.

This exhibition presented a selection of work by Wakefield based artist Nicholas Vaughan, and was launched with an Instagram Live event. The audience were invited to view the exhibition on their computers and ask the artist and curator questions about the work via the Instagram live feed.

To conclude the calendar of events around this online exhibition we will be holding a virtual Lunchtime Conversation via Zoom on Sunday 21st March 2021 between 12 and 12:45pm 

My Kingdom For A Croissant will be realised as a Real-World exhibition at BasementArtsProject in Late 2021 Covid permitting. To gain invites to this and all other BasementArtsProject exhibitions and events join our Mailing List