Kestrelart

@noondaysun

Cancer specialist, and survivor. Art student. Dad. Husband. Science, history, palaeontology, literature, music, imperialism, colonialism, feminism, LGBTQ+. Neil (he/him). #FreePalestine

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Bluesky

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Kestrelart@noondaysun· 11d

Self portrait from odd angle. This alla prima oil painting was done on canvas as a learning exercise in February this year. The screen I worked from rested on the table, hence the foreshortened view of myself. Technical notes on kestrelart.wordpress.com/2026/03/11/s...

View from below, foreshortened oil painting of male-presenting figure in green sweatshirt and wearing glasses.

Kestrelart@noondaysun· 13d

Accidental Script. Oil paint on board 2026. #Art #Contemporary_art #Painting

Sycamore helicopter seeds float on canal water on the left and rest on accumulated debris on the towpath on the right.

Kestrelart@noondaysun· 13d

The moon impressed into debris on the towpath under the motorway. Oil paint on canvas.

An image of the moon is impressed onto detritus collecting on the towpath by the concrete wall.

Kestrelart@noondaysun· 13d

Reflections and ripples on the canal by the motorway bridge. Oil paint.

Bright sunlight is caught between two blocks of shadow on the concrete wall by the side of the canal. Ripples spread from a pebble thrown in the canal, distorting the reflected sunlight and graffiti.

Kestrelart@noondaysun· Feb 18

This had been an image that came into my mind unbidden, each time I think of the high dose chemotherapy I’ve just started. #art #painting

Abstract formed with collage of sliced image of Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus’ with single layer oil paint over this, creating a textured stiffly bowed central orange shape and blue disc, over a dark background.

Kestrelart@noondaysun· Jan 27

kestrelart.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/i... kestrelart.wordpress.com/2022/02/24/o... kestrelart.wordpress.com/2022/02/26/t...

Kestrelart@noondaysun· Dec 18

Abstract in oil. A small painting. Pink / violet with red dominates the centre, neutrals and greens the periphery.

Kestrelart@noondaysun· Dec 16

Small sketch in a cafe, from the ceiling with oak beams, from which hang plants in pots, down to the fire exit then two women talking, then rows of benches coming toward me.

Kestrelart@noondaysun· Dec 10

Small sketches from a narrow focus #Art #Drawing

Kestrelart@noondaysun· Nov 24

In Oct 2023, right after the breakout from the occupied isolated ghetto of Gaza, with killing and kidnapping including many non-combatants, Labour leader and now prime minister supported the cutting of water and power to Gaza, affecting 2.2 million civilians. I knew then that genocide would follow.

A girl’s red dress hangs on a tree stump in front of a scene of utter devastation left in the wake of the withdrawal of Israeli Occupation Forces from a town in Khan Younis in Gaza. This sketch was done from an instagram post from Middle Eastern Eye.

As a medical professional, it was easy for me to work out that cutting off all supplies to a civilian population under siege, with ongoing killing, and destruction of infrastructure, would lead to mass deaths not only from munitions but from starvation, communicable and non communicable disease and from mental health trauma. The death toll in Gaza is likely now to have reached at least 10% of the population and we are in an acceleration phase as cumulative morbidity progressively hits harder.
Joining the London protests sends a signal of solidarity, which remarkably is seen and heard in Palestine and brings hope. It also is aimed at our government which was and is giving diplomatic cover and selling arms to support the genocide. It was the route for me to make links for further constructive action.

Early in the protests, as an isolated person without links yet to other health workers, I did what I do, and sketched, sometimes walking, sometimes sitting on walls. This shows the protesters, Palestinian flags at Trafalgar Square with buildings in the background.

I eventually linked with the health workers for Palestine bloc on the London protests and through them found the Palmed Academy, that has created an amazing online framework to continue medical education, and soon to come dental and nursing training, in Gaza in the face of devastation. I heard eyewitness testimony from students and doctors in Gaza at the Palmed conference just yesterday.
Doctor, nurses, pharmacists, paramedics etc in Gaza are deliberately targeted by the Israeli Occupation Forces as well as the infrastructure for health provision and education and training crucial to maintain health services long term. Medical students in Gaza are now carrying out doctors’ and nurses’ roles, up to and including emergency surgery. Health professionals need our solidarity especially during genocide, as morale to continue to work, and to enable students to complete their training and graduate as the backbone of the future health service. These young women and men have broken sleep a few hours in 48, with the percussion near-by air strikes and buzz of the hovering murderous drones ever present.
In March and April 2024 I started to document my response in graphic novel form, though this has lapsed. https://kestrelart.wordpress.com/diary-of-an-extremist-chapter-1/

Kestrelart@noondaysun· Nov 24

My life as a scientist was shaped,age 12, by the documentary “The Ascent of Man”. The penultimate episode was a memorial to the Holocaust filmed in Birkenau youtu.be/ltjI3BXKBgY?.... I made my own pilgrimage to that spot in 2022. kestrelart.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/i... #Art #Holocaust #genocide

This sketch was made at Auschwitz-Birkenau by the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria. My shadow stretches over the ponds where were flushed the ashes of people, Jews, whom the Nazis intended to erase from life, culture and all memory.

A few years after I’d watched that documentary, in my late teens, I copied out Jacob Bronowski’s words over a line drawing of his face. He talks of the horrors arising from blind dogma and puts against that the founding principle of science, uncertainty, and testing against evidence. He spoke walking, in best suit and shoes, out into the water, scooping a handful of that mud containing the ashes of murdered victims, and said “we have to touch people”. Science is a human discipline.

I returned to this theme earlier this year, considering the question we all must answer. What would we do if genocide was taking place right now, witnessed and documented, yet with the whole weight of the state invested in the occupying force carrying out mass murder, such that to speak out is to be labelled an “extremist”. It was said of the Holocaust “never again”. “Again” has happened many times since and in many places. It is happening now and it is Western governments driving it. Have Bronowski’s words meaning for me today?

Kestrelart@noondaysun· Nov 24

Ongoing introduction to me on Bluesky: this piece, inspired by TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, emerged from a method of deliberate randomisation, then finding the story within in layers of ink, paint and conte crayon. kestrelart.wordpress.com/2019/02/03/f... #Art

This is a woodland but with two splashes of bright red of uncertain significance. There are words written here, shown on the next image.

“Now I fear the disturbance of the quiet seasons, winter shall come bringing death from the sea”, Prophetic words from the chorus in TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral.

Kestrelart@noondaysun· Nov 24

Continuing my introduction on Bluesky, here are two introspective images made in altered mind states, one in oils, one the other a mix of ink, gouache and conte crayon. Some of the additional material on the blog stems from exploring existentialism. kestrelart.wordpress.com/headspace/ #Art

Abstract painting based on light values driving west from Cambridge mid November morning after a party the night before (altered mind state did not involve intoxication!). We were just emerging from lockdown, and I had met in person and instantly connected with people until then I’d only known online in a discord group.

Three rocks drawn onto intersecting rectangles with broken borders and uncertain solidity, drawn in an altered mind state. Conte crayon, gouache and ink.

Kestrelart@noondaysun· Nov 24

Continuing my introduction as “artist”. Here are various images of “city”, with ideas from Jonathan Raban’s Soft City (1976), China Mielville’s Perdido Street Station (2011) and an observational drawing on site. kestrelart.wordpress.com/soft-city/ #Art

Charcoal sketches of the Chicago waterfront were deconstructed with knife, poured ink and paint, then fitted together again.

An image created in glue and powdered pastel, shaped with a plastic blade. Maybe a giant figure emerges through downward rain over rock, the city as sanctuary stands in the distance.

A giant flying creature, flying over water, enters the city through the sewers. Made in glue, powdered pastel and ink. Inspiration from China Meilville’s novel, Perdido Street Station.

Observational drawing from the roadside in Chicago of a parking lot containing newspaper delivery lorries marked Chicago Tribune, in front of skyscrapers. Watercolour and conte crayon.

Kestrelart@noondaysun· Nov 24

Continuing to introduce myself on Bluesky as an artist (of sorts), here was a drawing of sculpted chess pieces somehow reflecting Trump’s early cabinets back in 2017, described in Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff, along with Sophocles’ Oedipus trilogy. kestrelart.wordpress.com/chess-pieces/ #Art

Four ornate chess pieces drawn in conte crayon.

Kestrelart@noondaysun· Nov 24

Continuing my introduction as an artist on Bluesky with my few finished pieces. This one, Fragments, begun as a charcoal observational drawing to which I took a knife. This is described on kestrelart.wordpress.com/fragments/ #Art

Kestrelart@noondaysun· Nov 24

I am starting a series of posts to introduce myself on Bluesky as an artist and, possibly, belatedly, as an activist. I tend to do a lot of sketches posted on my blog, and few finished pieces. Here is one, described on kestrelart.wordpress.com/2024/10/08/s... #Art #Painting