Fortune Fishing

Fortune Fishing is a work of personal significance, depicting a sickly woman submerged in water surrounded by koi fish. I work on a gaming floor where gamblers spend 12+ hours a day slapping pokie machines, and smoking their lungs away. In the smoking area, there is a magnificent koi fish pond, and the fish are fed a diet of pellets, coins, spit, and cigarettes from the patrons. They claim throwing the coins is good luck, and the starving koi eat all of it.

They regularly die of tumours from the cigarettes, and we have a designated net to scoop the dead ones out of the pond. It's a cruel sight, one that we've grown accustomed to the shocking reality of humanity and favouritism of protecting certain animals, and not others.

Process photo of painting