Jamie Drew's Very Good PrintsI don't really deal in conceptual photography. I don't know why but I never had a talent for it. But you can probably read something into this, swirling a plastic cup of cheap red wine with friends at home, gathered around this print you've hung in the most conversation-starting part of your home. Is the dark cloud bearing down on the London skyline some kind of metaphor?, you could ask one another. Is it the weight of the capitalistic system against which the artist struggles, while at the same time he must find a way to survive within? You may suggest: Does the date (March, 2026) mean anything? Does it represent the war in the Middle East, which at the time of the photograph's taking — the time before the scarcities; before the famines; before all of this was reduced to a flat, burning wasteland; before we had to kill that guy for this box of cheap red wine, possibly the last box remaining on planet earth — was threatening to burst its banks and overspill into a full-blown world war? Was this the last storm the photographer ever saw? Every work of art, from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to the most casual smartphone picture, is a conversation between the artist and their audience, and my conversation starter to you, future audience, is this: I hope you are well. I hope you are kind to one another. I hope there is still a wall upon which to hang this, still time in the day for wine and chit-chat with the people you love. I hope that whatever it took to get to where you are, the struggles were worth it.
