Siamese slaves, 2008

Derek Carruthers  

Watercolour and gouache on paper painting titled 'Siamese Slaves' by British artist Derek Carruthers, signed to the bottom right and to the reverse and dated 2008 and titled.

A colourful and extremely thought provoking painting. The eye is firstly drawn to the beautiful lush green background of the image until the figures in the foreground catch your attention. Typically Carruthers likes to jolt us out of our reality and question our perception of the world. Here our wonder at the beautiful backdrop turns sour as we see Siamese slaves being dragged across the image tethered by their noses to long ropes pulled by a strong, muscular arm.

Often in Carruthers' work the figures are faceless perhaps to make the point that we lose our identity when following any group doctrine. However here the artist wants to highlight the the fact that although the people are being treated as a faceless commodity they are in fact a group of individuals. When we see the face and the individual we find it harder to treat them inhumanely. It is the figure pulling the slaves who is faceless here.