The Athens series

As he stood in a shadowed lane below the Acropolis, the artist imagined children playing there millennia ago at the same time that philosophers would’ve been debating on the hill above. Bilby’s photo of this ancient scene in dusk glow was the reference for a digital illustration based on the geometric shapes of a Chinese calligraphy grid. This was processed in Photoshop to provide various iterations of colour and abstraction. The pencil drawings of the children are mostly based on twentieth century archival photos, but when combined with the abstracted backgrounds, an exact sense of time or place is indeterminate. This series of 21 works – displayed at ‘The Spacious Palaces Of Memory’ exhibition – celebrates the exuberance and innocence of children at play, something shared across generations and cultures, and representing hope in an increasingly divided world.