Description
Fig.V Dust to Dust Studies (Put a Curse on my Enemy) Mixed media on paper 21 x 30 cm approx.
Fig.IV Dust to Dust Studies (Put a Curse on my Enemy) Mixed media on paper 21 x 30 cm approx.
Fig.III Dust to Dust Studies (Put a Curse on my Enemy) Pencil and watercolour on paper 21 x 30 cm approx.
Fig.II Dust to Dust Studies (Put a Curse on my Enemy) Pencil and watercolour on paper 21 x 30 cm approx.
Fig.I Dust to Dust Studies (Put a Curse on my Enemy) Pencil and watercolour on paper 21 x 30 cm approx.
Title: “Dust to Dust Series: Protest Poems”
- Size and media: Mixed media on paper varied, unframed, 21 x 30 cm approx.
- Storage: Palmerston North, New Zealand
- These works can be bought individually or as a collection.
Christchurch Mosque Attacks
This series was drawn at the time of the mass shooting at the Mosque in Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand. Two consecutive mass shootings occurred at mosques in a terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, during Friday Prayer on 15 March 2019. There were 51 deaths and 40 injured.
Meir ben Elijah was a Norwich Jew suffering persecution. A series of incidents led to open persecution of the Jews of Norwich- hangings and massacre ensued. Different people, different time, different book, same dehumanisation at work.
Put a Curse on My Enemy
“Put a curse on my enemy, for every man supplants his brother.
When will You [God] say to the house of Jacob, come let us walk in the light?
You are mighty and full of light, You turn the darkness into light.”
- Meir ben Elijah of Norwich (England, late 13th century)
- Full poem: Meir ben Elijah of Norwich
“Meir’s poem is an eloquent attempt to combine the praise of God with the painful experience of the English Jews. The ‘darkness’ represents those who hate the Jews – apparently, local people and the authorities; the ‘light’ represents the Jewish God and the future Messiah, whom the Jews await. Meir’s poems survive in a unique manuscript now held in the Vatican Library in Rome; they were discovered in the 1880s by Abraham Berliner, and, whilst nothing is known about how they reached this particular archive, it is likely that the manuscript reached the Continent with one of the Jews expelled in 1290.”
-Professor Anthony Bale, Medieval Studies, Deputy Dean (Arts) and Assistant Dean (Arts Research), Birkbeck, University of London
