Bring Back My Bonnie To Me. 2018

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Digitally manipulated photographs of Keyrings and naff toys won from childhood holidays in Great Yarmouth, UK.

 

Each image : 100cm x 100cm. Perspex Mounted

Quadriptych

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''This is a very personal work for me, during my childhood me and my family won over 400 key rings fallen from the edge of 2p pusher machines. There was something about the buzz of winning something totally naff.  A feeling of utter elation at a plastic shoe falling from 2 ft into a metal tray.

 

Hours we spent repeating this beautiful charade. The naffer the better we used to say. We developed techniques to work out what keyring would fall and how much money it would take to make it fall. We knew it all. The timings of when to release your coins, how to check to see if any money had fallen out. We knew how to win.

 

The digital manipulation of the images aims to suggest a distance of these experiences as one enters into adult life. It also comments on the increasing stimulation found in digital devices such as IPads and questions the contemporary significance of physical amusement arcades, 2p pushers and tatty key rings in a digitised hyper active culture. A culture in which all games and playful experiences have been muted down to apps and played through a screen.''

 

The title; Bring Back my Bonnie to Me references a recurring song choice of the Great Yarmouth amusement arcades, with machines often repeating the chorus as money is put in. The title also references a fondness and a longing for the blissful naivety of childhood and a personal reference to nostalgia.