Northbridge Red and Blue
Introducing Thomas
What's in your art cup? Tea or coffee?
I drink tea, black or white. Twinings or Madura. Coffee at a cafe is a large almond milk latte or cappuccino. Lately from Il Lido in Cottesloe. I have found their coffee-making abilities very good.
Why this piece of artwork for the cup?
With a cup of coffee, one can reflect and settle one’s emotions. The coffee-drinking experience provides the frame for an intimacy with the self. And an intimacy with another. Real or imagined. Red and Blue.
"With a cup of coffee one can reflect and settle one’s emotions".
What is the story behind this piece of art?
Northbridge Red and Blue is about pleasure and pain. The painting mixes red and blue to make variations of purple and violet. Ghosts of the past walk down Glendower Street. Jacaranda tree branches heavy with blossom humbly bend in the wind. Hard rain falls in November. The fallen blossom turn blue in the wet gutter. Your fancy red umbrella. Not much good to you now. As you left in your locker. Intimacy transforms into loneliness. Things that you thought were secure. Fracture like the old picket fence that falls flat in the storm. Northbridge. A space. A mindset. A longing to belong.
What have you enjoyed about this project?
I love that strangers might be surprised to see an artwork on the side of a coffee cup. And then. Maybe even under a Northbridge sky. The coffee drinker will try to understand with their heart some of the mixed emotions expressed in this artwork.
Why is it important to support the arts?
Art provides new connections to the world in spontaneous and unforeseen ways.
