Sculpture Information

This is a sculpture of a blind, deaf and mute man sitting on a coin beneath which there is great suffering for men, women and children: Poverty, exploitation, corruption and grief. I was finishing this sculpture (sanding the head) the very hour Donald Trump was first made president elect in 2017.

The inspiration for this piece came while watching BBC 1’s Poldark, where the Warleggan family were squeezing the poor for money that they didn’t have, for their own financial gain.  They showed no justice or mercy.

There is an idea that wealth will ‘Trickle down’ from the rich to the less fortunate. But we continually see that this is simply not the case.  Whilst carving this sculpture the CEO of BHS (British Home Stores) took the money from his workers’ pension fund to buy a £100 million pound yacht called, ‘Lionheart’.

I watched a Ted Talk, ‘Does money make you mean?’. It found that those who were given an unfair advantage, in an experimental board game, came to believe the extra money was theirs by merit leading to a false sense of entitlement and elitism.  Statistics have shown there is a corresponding link with a subsequent decrease in compassion, empathy and increased likely hood of breaking the law (i.e. ignoring red traffic lights and speed cameras).

In 2016 we saw the government (predominantly past members of the Oxford Bullington Boys Club) ignore the laws being enforced on the public. Their austerity measures resulted in the rise of food banks whilst companies avoided paying millions of pounds in taxes and reaped huge bonuses.

Under the coin in this sculpture there are two pierced hands. Christ’s Hands. Jesus counted himself with the poor and was betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ And ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?’