After the flood series

Acrylic on canvas, various sizes

In a matter of hours on September 26, 2009, Tropical Storm Ketsana dropped the equivelent of month’s rainfall on the Philippine capital of Manila. By September 28, more than 100,000 people were in evacuation centres and more than 330,000 people were believed to be affected. It was the worst flood to strike the region in more than forty years.

A double page spread in Time Magazine looking down on a sea of people in an evacuation centre provided the starting point for these paintings. Each group of people had there own story, their on way of coping or not coping with the tragic situation. People massed together, marooned on blankets that now became family homes, with meagre belongings bundled on their allocated rectangular patch.

The more I looked at the mass, the more I saw grandparents, parents, couples and children getting on with the necessities of life – eating, sleeping, comforting each other. Amid the obvious distress and alienation I felt a sense of dignity, heroism even, in that stinking place.