About This Project

OK, this one started out with ventriloquist’s dummies.

I find them fascinating. Others find them slightly unsettling in the same way people find clowns disturbing.

When I was a kid, back in the UK, there was a prime-time radio show, the star was a ventriloquist’s dummy who went by the name of ‘Archie Andrews.’

Go figure?

In this painting I’ve paired my male dummy with the equally-artificial babe to, hopefully, provide an oddball mis-match that questions, well, relationships. And why, when and how do we, unassuming mere mortals, ever get involved in them?

Throw in ancient pyramid, spacecraft, antiquated statues and majestic butterflies emerging from their chrysalis and this whole tangled web of artifice will leave you in little doubt that the journey between life and death is far more labyrinthian than you, being a simple soul, had ever anticipated!

The title ‘Batteries Not Included’ explains the whole, muddled endeavour.