Lockdown Flags and Rainbows

video work accessible through Mattflix website commissioned by Matt's Gallery, London

Lockdown Rainbows and Flags was created over the course of the recent UK national lockdown, which is just now coming to an end.

The work marks the passing of a particular moment in time, borne of monotony and repetition interspersed with moments of creativity and focus. Shot on an iPhone with incidental sound the video shows the artist at work in his home studio creating a series of works depicting rainbows and flags using Indian ink. This is set to a background of day to day occurrences (making cups of coffee, listening to music), moments peculiar to this time (taking a covid test) and historical events unfolding on the world stage in Scotland, England and the USA.

Fagen's series of rainbows began during the first lockdown, when the symbol began to appear in windows as a sign of support for NHS workers engaged on the frontline of the pandemic, risking their lives to save others. Fagen turned his Indian ink method to this symbol and worked with it. With political events raging over the last few months he began to use the method to create flags, which like the rainbows, act as a sign of community but with a different degree of complexity in meaning and belief. Finally, he combines the two to create a series of rainbow flags.

Duration: 3:34