11.05
Forwards, not backwards
Exhibition and book by David Godbold,
Official Artist of the 2005 general election

"... Forward not backwards is a highly original visual diary of the General Election 2005. In the lead-up to the general election, artist David Godbold was commissioned by the Speaker's Advisory Committee on Works of Art to follow the Campaign trail up to Election Day and to generate works of art based on the many influences he encountered along the way.

A gruelling journey ensued for the artist as he tried to cover the election campaign as widely as possible through the United Kingdom. The result is this series of 18 individual pieces, each giving personal insight into what the artist found, and together creating a lasting record of the election campaign.

This is only the second time an election artist has been formally commissioned by the Commons, and follows the success of Johnny Yeo's "Proportional Representation", a series of three portraits of the party leaders painted for the 2001 General Election ..."

"Forwards not backwards": Contemporary artwork on the General Election 2005 for the House of Commons

From the book:

"... The election artist project is a relatively un-tried-and-tested formula. I am only the second of my kind, and may be the last if the world keeps heading down the primrose path of fear and suspicion. The 'virgin' election artist Jonathan Yeo made much more sense, in all sorts of ways. Not only are his social skills of near legendary proportion - he appears to have taught vast swathes of the journalistic fraternity how to spread bet - but he, in a good way, is a rather more conventional artistic animal than myself. In a simpler age... (which seems like a million years ago, well pre-9-11, 7-7 and 21-7 anyway) he was commissioned to paint the portraits of the (then) three main party leaders, and applied the rather brilliant twist of rendering them in relative scale to their received votes. Yeo has thus done something wonderful, in that he has seemingly opened the floodgates to the extremes of conceptual possibilty in the minds of the House of Commons committee - excuse the sentiment; but he has planted a small explosive charge (not a real one, I would hastily add, given the new and very misguided 'STK' policy!) ..."

David Godbold 2005

Forwards, not backwards, by David Godbold : Booth Clibborn
Available on Amazon