Recently thinking about the advancing years I decided to make an inventory of all the work I still have around me in my home and studio. Rather unexpectedly I found it a very emotional and cathartic experience. However it also helped me to focus again on some themes that I had investigated in previous decades. Some of these I had neglected in more recent times because like most artists in later life I had begun to investigate “Art” rather than “Life”. This trip back in time resurrected old feelings and passions which first surfaced in my student days in the 1970s. Consequently I have now begun, armed with many years of progressive technique, to investigate the suffering of ordinary people both in Ireland and in many other countries. I am searching for representations of the human figure that are not specific to particular places but are common symbols of the struggles of humanity in a very cruel world. I choose to ignore the aggressors and controllers and concentrate on the oppressed and displaced. In the process of drawing and painting I hope to find peace and hope rather than produce alternative hatred and aggression.