WORK BY LOU MCKEEVER - 'BLUELOU'


 

'MATCHBOOKS'

A series of three digital works with a contemporary take on old World War II matchbooks

 

'Flowers'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'Coffins'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'Northern Ireland'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A COMIC STRIP

'What I know about War'
by Louise McKeever
(aged 35 and three quarters)

 

My uncle is one of the few catholic policemen in Northern Ireland at the time.

I'm about 14.They machine-gun him down on his front step.

I am one of the people that helps out with the cleanup. There are pints of his blood everywhere. I poke it with a yard brush; it is solid like blancmange.

Hot soapy water.

 

Then the politicians turn up. Thatcher sends one of her ministers. I serve him tea and biscuits as he shakes the limp hand of my uncle’s widow.

Political automaton.They have the demeanour of a gentleman and the humanity of a stoat.

His image is almost obliterated from my memory save the Mr. Whippy ice cream hairstyle sported by MPs of a certain age.

                                                                           

 

 

 

We walk behind his coffin with my mother pulling up our coats up around our faces so the cameras can’t see them. It would mean bad news if we were identified back in the republican black hole that we lived in at the time.


In a hotel afterwards, there is a surreal moment where the hotel has laid-on a side room with a large T.V. in front of rows of chairs.


This is where you sit if you want to watch yourself at a funeral.

  

 

I think the biggest bomb I was in was in Belfast. Sometimes films get it right. Adrenalin slows down your perception of time. So your reactions become quicker.

Among the suspended, glinting broken glass like in the eye of the storm, my mother grabs me and tries to protect me. She’s got one of those beige rain coats on. I am staring at the belt buckle.

Time stands still, then the screaming starts, and everything speeds up to fast-forward. We are uninjured.

  

 

A street away, a five-story building is demolished. Sloping like a Christmas tree, paper flutters out of the branches of concrete.

We had walked past it about 20 or 30 minutes ago. It’s the sonic wave that’s the most amazing bit. Even when you’re far from the detonation, it’s like a punch to the stomach. The large front window of our house wobbles during a mortar attack. It looks like a film of washing up liquid on a kid’s bubble blower.		  

 

By now I have acquired a strong Northern Irish accent. I grew weary of being gobbed on at school all the time, and adapted fast, but the stench of Brit still clung to me.

Worse still I decided as a teen to take the most disliked stance of all among my peers, the dreaded pacifist. The Northern Ireland understanding of it at the time being you would rather have an argument then a fight.

  

 

During the 80s my parents move back to England. We move to Carlisle and shortly after that, Pan Am flight 103 explodes high up in the atmosphere above my head. As I go on a forgetful date with Vogon poetry-writing Cumbrian Goth, Flight 103 embeds itself into Lockerbie up the road.

I meet unpleasant people who have bits of the fuselage as ashtrays in their bedsits for many months after. I feel so much envy for these people. Nothing really bad has ever happened to them to warrant a trace of empathy, little things lead their lives. Nothing big to drag around and to be dragged by.		  

 

It’s usually the police that turn out to be worse at this time. During the 80s most cops sport the Saddam Hussein manly moustache. They appear to be part of their terrorist detection systems.

As soon as they hear your accent they start to bristle and it's twenty questions time. Diversity in the police during this period meant a copper without a moustache.		  



The story continues at www.bluelou.net

 

PROPAGANDA LEAFLETS

Thousands of leaflets were dropped on Iraq by US forces at the start of the invasion.
The following are modified versions, with original text and replacement pictures. 
They demonstrate some of the tragic ironies of the war and the almost farcical instructions and warnings issued to Iraqi civilians by America.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Back to Throney Island’

Some sketches from the seat of power...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'4 YEARS...'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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