Flight Of Chance

"Flight Of Chance", 2020
Becky Gouverneur 
 
Charcoal on Snowdon 300gsm
Unframed: 59.4H x 84.1W cm
Framed: 77.5H x 104.5W cm 

During the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020 we were all told to “Stay Home and Save Lives”.  Our freedom was limited, we planned where and when we would take our permitted once a day exercise outside of our homes.  We avoided contact with those around us and lived in a bubble of loneliness and isolation.

When we were finally allowed to ‘take flight’ we walked around in an unfamiliar world, our faces shielded by our masks that kept us safe but also shielded from a passing smile of a stranger in the street.  Our isolation continued as we were warned to keep distant from those around us in case the hand of chance dealt to us this invisible virus..... and then, the chance we would not know we were sick and would pass along the illness, or perhaps the chance we would be one of those to be fatally infected.

And so, in this drawing, a lonely Barn Owl flies through an empty forest that’s crowded by trees, as we walk through a busy world while remaining isolated and fearing interaction with those around us.  The Owl scatters the cards of chance as the breeze blows the virus in the air and who knows where either will land?
 
___________________________________________________________________________
About Becky Gouverneur
Becky Gouverneur is a professional artist specialising in realistic, detailed portraits of animals. She works primarily in graphite and charcoal but occasionally in colour with pastel or coloured pencil. Becky's high contrasting and quirky images, most often presented on a stark white background, are born from her background as a professional studio photographer.