Wednesday 15 April 2015

Bicycle Thieves

I like to keep thinking about the subject of my next painting, while working on the current one.
Although I had already had thought of a title - 'War Babes', the story has now moved on, and I'm thinking of changing it.
Originally, I was going to depict three female victims of the second world war, my mother and her two cousins who were all pregnant and had to get married because of the conventions at the time.
I wanted to contrast them with three newer, female family members who aren't married and see no reason to be, but have children, to show how things have changed.
I then saw a film entitled 'Bicycle Thieves', set in Italy in 1948, which gave my idea a further twist. As well as telling the story of an actual bicycle theft and its aftermath, the film is also trying to get across how a whole nation's lives have been stolen, by the events of the war.
I feel my six relatives, by not being married but having children, may, in their different ways have had their lives stolen, too. Much more so than their male partners.
And the theft of a bicycle in my painting? Well, my 1940 bicycle has been stolen, but luckily I got it back.  

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