Reimagining John & Yoko

FOR practical reasons, I have used ink and pencil for many of my earlier pieces on paper. When I was invited by Art Voice to join an online exhibition called “Works on Paper”, I quickly chose this one because it was one of the more memorable. I had posted it on FB before, so I just pulled out the text which ran as follows:

“I am no expert on the Beatles. From frequent listening to their music and reading about them, I concluded that a primary allure of the band was the personality of John Lennon. This was to prove true during the post-Beatles period.

“Lennon’s glasses and odd publicity scenes with Yoko, from the late 1960s until his assassination in 1981, became pop cultural icons of the period. His ‘isms’ – atheism, pacifism, activism and the outlandish ‘bagism’, among them – also raised the profile of the couple.

“In 1980, I did a ‘reimagined’ piece of the two without using any reference and changed all but the essential features; I was tempted to rename it ‘hippies’ or simply ‘man and woman’ but decided to stick with the original impetus. There could be a subconscious desire to abide by the celebrity cliche - that men should be macho and women pretty.”