This series of paintings and digital collages is a compassionate response to a photo journalist’s image of people in an evacuation centre. The photo appeared in Time Magazine in 2009. Taken looking down, it was a sea of mosaic colour.
As I studied the image, the poignancy of the photo became stronger.  The arresting image transformed as the the detail of the mosiac mass came into sharp relief – families, children, unnamed individuals, couples with babies. Here were groups of people  creating their “homes” on areas that they demarcated with mats and blankets.

They were living their lives in this place. Eating, playing, trying to sleep, despairing, all of them thrown together and dislocated as a result of a natural disaster. This is what I chose to paint.

Now we see the connection between more intense tropical cyclones and the predicted change in climate due to global warming.

Cyclone Ketsana
Date: 23 September 2009 – 30 September 2009
Affected areas: Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Guangdong Province, Hainan
Highest wind speed: 165 km/h
Total fatalities: 710