Blue Plague is a linocut crime reconstruction of scenes witnessed by the artist on December 9th 2010 in Parliament Square, London, on the third day of protest against increased student fees.
Working from photographs captured by the kettled crowd and cutting Calaveras in the vernacular of Posada, Cradduck poses vignettes of awkward violence with a cast of grinning skeletons. Blue Plague was created as an inspirational classroom poster for the Blue Plague Print School- a fully functional lino printing workshop that was led by the artist and operating within WestLane South Gallery for the length of the exhibition.
Blue Plague and the Blue Plague Print School are a response to the relentless attacks made by the current British Government on arts education and the culture of its citizens. Cradduck comments that; “Tory influence is a bubonic miasma polluting the atmosphere and poisoning the social body. To disadvantaged people, it can be fatal.”
