Game, as they say, on.

What is important is that artists lend their voice to expressions of freedom in their own unique way. Sometimes an artist's complex reading of a situation, which then can be put in a simple pure image, can help a movement become more popular. Art is an expressive medium, and if it is used to portray the values of a retrogressive regime, the art will be stilted and lifeless. That is why fascistic regimes always kill the poets and writers, and ban contemporary artists from showing. Just by the making of it, real art becomes the voice of freedom.

I gave the subject of this portrait a shock this week.

The heavy flooding, fallen trees, insane detours, and generally unpleasant weather are all perhaps best summed up by this abandoned umbrella. 

This article first appeared as 'Otira colour captured in all its summer glory' in The Press  on 28 February 2014.