The rocket stands upright in the park, improbably tall, impossibly earnest. It is a toy, unmistakably so, yet it carries itself with the confidence of something far more serious. Its fins are crisp, its body clean, its colours bold in a way that belongs to another time. Behind it, the city rises in darkened blocks, windows glowing softly as lives continue inside. In the grass below, clover flowers bloom, and a bumblebee hovers, unconcerned. Scale is everything here, and nothing is quite where it should be.
This is Take Me to Your Leader, and the title arrives already carrying a smile. The phrase echoes from mid-century science fiction, from tinny television speakers and comic-book speech bubbles, when the universe felt close enough to visit and friendly enough to negotiate with. The question hangs in the air, unanswered. Is the spaceman addressing the city? The unseen figures behind the lit windows? Or has the message been misdirected entirely, intended instead for the bumblebee going about its quiet, essential work?
The rocket itself is a time capsule from the 1960s, a period when space exploration was driven as much by imagination as engineering. Made by Lemezaru Gyar in Hungary, the Holdraket toy was powered by a simple friction drive, but its real magic lay in what happened when it met resistance. When the nose cone struck an obstacle, the rocket performed its party trick: rising upright on its wheels, the door swinging open, the ladder flapping down, and the astronaut stepping forward, ready for first contact. It was theatre in tinplate, designed to surprise and delight, to turn play into narrative.
Here, that moment is frozen. The astronaut stands framed in the open doorway, caught between inside and out, between journey and arrival. Behind him, the city looms, a silhouette of human progress, ambition stacked upon ambition. Skyscrapers suggest achievement, density, and control. Yet they remain distant, almost indifferent, while the foreground is alive with grass, flowers, and insects rendered at heroic scale.
The bumblebee becomes an unlikely protagonist. Large, present, and utterly self-possessed, it offers no acknowledgement of the visitor from space. It does not look impressed. In this quiet standoff, the painting asks its central question without insisting on an answer. Who, really, should be taken to the leader? The city, with its glowing windows and invisible hierarchies? Or the natural world, which persists, adapts, and thrives without asking permission?
As with many works in this series, the tone is playful, but the undercurrent is serious. Nostalgia is present, but it is not sentimental. The toy represents optimism, a belief in progress and discovery, while the bee and clover remind us of systems far older and far more resilient. The meeting of these worlds feels accidental, tender, and unresolved.
Nothing explodes. No conquest occurs. Instead, we are left with a moment of pause. A toy rocket, a spaceman, a city at dusk, and a bumblebee doing what it has always done. The future, it seems, may depend on which one we decide is worth listening to.
Take me to your leader, oil on Linen 95 cm x 75 cm (Sold)
Also available as a Limited Edition
