68 of 184

|

women's t-shirts music women's t-shirts musician women's t-shirts actor women's t-shirts black women's t-shirts face women's t-shirts mummers women's t-shirts musicians women's t-shirts street women's t-shirts dance women's t-shirts mime women's t-shirts traditional women's t-shirts pantomime women's t-shirts loud women's t-shirts costume women's t-shirts fiddle women's t-shirts

paintings music paintings musician paintings actor paintings black paintings face paintings mummers paintings musicians paintings street paintings dance paintings mime paintings traditional paintings pantomime paintings loud paintings costume paintings fiddle paintings

Add This Artwork to Your Favorites Collection

Comment

Add This Artwork to Your Favorites Collection

Comment

These are a local group, who occasionally appear on the streets of the towns hereabouts, and give vibrant performances of dance and music based on the traditions of the black-face mummers. The masking and dance traditions go back centuries and seem to appear in different forms in many different cultures around the world. I found this group to be very entertaining, but also with a suggestion of menace, which I couldn't quite put my finger on, but which I have tried to allude to in the painting.

I was born into a British working-class family in Scarborough, Yorkshire. I have an elder brother and sister. We were brought up in what is now called a single-parent family. Our mother was a waitress. When she died, we kids went off in different directions. Not choice, it just happened. After something of a chaotic period I ended up with foster parents living in Darwen, Lancashire, aged eleven. They took me with them when they moved to Manchester. At the age of twelve I was offered an interview for a place in the Manchester High School of Art, a specialist junior art school in the normal secondary system. A place had become available because a pupil had climbed into the building next door for a bet with his mates. It was Strangeways...