I've been finding it quite hard to draw or write anything lately. There seems to be a global trend of militarization, increasingly fascist rhetoric, transphobic discourse and transphobic policy, and here in Sweden our right-wing parties are, in my view, making more and more openly Islamophobic, hateful and divisive statements. To me they seem to strategically be getting criticism of Israel's genocide mixed up with antisemitism, and while I've rarely ever seen our right-wing parties do anything of use for the LGBTQIA+-community we are continuously being used as an argument for xenophobic policies as if immigrants – and not right-wing fear-mongering – are the biggest threat to our safety. They've also decided to survey the values of immigrants specifically, and I can't see it resulting in anything else than escalating polarization and a feeling that only certain people are welcome and safe here. And so, the state of the world being what it is, I've been feeling as if my art holds no value if it doesn't comment on these topics. But I've also realized more and more that creating something that hopefully can cheer people up is, in times like these, more important than ever. This piece, I think, is about daring to be hopeful about finding love and connectedness. And I suppose that the value of a painting like this is to remind people that what we all really want is cute flowers, community and connectedness. Right-wing politics won't ever help us with that.
Take care of yourselves and each other! ❤️☀️
