Farewell 2018! Clipped the heads off a few roses this year, planting some more next year. image: The Empire’s New Clothes, 2017, pigmented india ink, watercolour, coloured pencil and synthetic polymer paint on cotton paper, 127 × 97cm (50 x 38 in)… The titular tale referenced and its idiom about logical fallacies become an allegory for British colonialism in this self-portrait as Queen Alexandra, monarch of the United Kingdom of Britain and Empress of India. Based on a 1902 photograph in coronation attire, this queen wears the invisible gown of colonial legacies, keeping the famed Koh-i-Noor diamond in her crown, amongst her other jewels and gown adornments substituted by items traded out of India by the East India Company. Originally owned in shares by wealthy merchants and aristocrats, the British company took its interest in India from trade to territory via private military power, eventually acting sovereignly for the British Crown before the latter took direct control in 1858. Alight in her majesty’s eyes is the British Empire’s global reign at the time, secured by tyranny often in guises of trade. #godsavethequeen #queenalexandra #morticia #colonialwonders (at India)
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