Comfort in conflict (who's your daddy)

'The mud is creeping up at our knees. If only we’d look down.

Goya has always been an artist that has fascinated me. There is nothing fancy about what he does, no flare and very little of his work can be regarded as romantic. His lens is one focused on the darker natures of human existence. A lot of his subjects are either on the brink of psychological collapse or death. Often, they have gone beyond both these brinks.

His painting ‘Fight with Cudgels’ is no exception. Painted in his final years directly onto the walls of his home (Quinta del Sordo) just outside of Madrid. It forms part of what has become known as ‘The Black Paintings’ that are titled so both because of the large amount of black paint used in them but more importantly because of their bleak and haunting themes. Like any good work, it has had many lives and interpretations. It was first presented to me as ‘two men, fighting knee deep in mud and instead of helping each other out of the mud, they continued to beat each other to death’. Personal gain or survival was more important than equilibrium.

I’m no expert on conflict or global political issues but I do remember the start of the gulf war in the early 90’s. The news screamed ‘We’re going to war’ and I was expecting to see tanks driving up and down the road in rural Victoria. I was ten years old. I also remember viewing many documentaries about the human impact on our environment - the volume of plastics entering the oceans increasing, natural habitats being destroyed, holes in the ozone. I remember thinking that all this was temporary, we’d sort it out, we’re smart… the TV show ‘Beyond 2000’ had told me so. 35 years later in the year 2025, there seems to be very little progress, very little change, economies are more important than ecosystems and we’re still beating each other with cudgels while sinking in the mud.

We’re all distracted. Even though we have this magnificent technology that connects us to every point, problem, success, feel good story and cat video around the globe, we don’t seem to recognise that we are sinking.'