For the majority of the population immigrants came to England in the sixties on the Empire Windrush But the truth is quite different. Most made the long journey by plane. Airlines such as B.O.A.C carried immigrants from the West Indies to what they thought would be better lives encouraged by the politics of the Mother Country. Sadly they were wrong. Dreams of integration and welcome soon faded and for the majority these aspirations were never realised
But what of the planes that brought them? Like the Empire Windrush few know or care. And like the dreams and the hopes, the few original airliners that remain, stand slowly fading on desolate museum runways. Fitting monuments to a cheated generation
Society paints parallels between these relics and the hopes of that B.O.A.C generation. The airliners are lovingly rendered neither leaving or arriving, caught in a limbo, suspended in dismal cloud. No pilots are seen in the cockpit, no faces at the windows, the passengers preferring to scurry away back to the dull safety inside
During early planning for this exhibition Society made it very clear that the works should be depicted in the environment in which they were completed. To provide some feeling and understanding of the artist and his troubled one room upbringing and early childhood as an immigrant from Barbados. In fact initial ideas were to paint in a small tent but seeing as tents had appeared before in contemporary art the paintings were completed in his garage/studio
Society would like to thank IWM Duxford for providing reference and its continued upkeep of the planes depicted
