Down in the dumps continues Sloggett's long-term love-affair with the unloved and the unloveable. For over 20 years he has elevated the burnt out and banal into something to be seen and celebrated, or at least acknowledged. He seeks out what most of us rush by or turn away from. He prints large too, so we can see with clarity the chaff, the rust and the ruin. These works aren’t about magical light or a romanticised decisive moment, in fact they probably depict the moment just before or just after something happened – on purpose. People are everywhere in Sloggett’s work, if you count the things they leave behind - their rubbish or discarded flowers, their used clothes or cars. This sense of absence and presence gives the works a real pathos. Our human foibles and failures are writ large – and we can either hate ourselves for them or, like Sloggett, see in them what it means to be human and find vestiges of hope.