Ewan Macbeth

I am an artist whose work questions unaccountable power; motivated by a strong sense of anxiety about the dark times in which we live. Climate breakdown, endless war and a crisis of democracy increasingly define the world. I try to make art that confronts these crises, asks questions and creates catharsis. Working with filmmaking, I set my work within an uncanny, unspecified present. I do this in an attempt to tell timeless stories which compound public and private trauma. By that I mean that the trauma of the characters represents a societal trauma in relation to a tyrannical form of power. These works take on their subject matter, which I find deeply serious and important, often with an absurd tone. With metaphors and ellipsis my work considers the increasing inability to distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t. I try to make work that is ambiguous yet accessible, beautiful yet dark; and to confront complex themes in a concise way. I find beauty in doing this in an artificial style with an emphasis on world building. As someone with a photography background image tends to come first. Simplicity is my approach and ‘less is more’ is the guiding principle. Ultimately, my work is guided by emotion, drama, mood and story. I believe that an artists job is to make work that tells their personal truth about how they see the world, and to ask questions. So, that’s what I try to do. I try to make unique and memorable art that pushes the audience to question how and why unaccountable power has created a world caught between crises.