Burning World
The world is not only heating up in the limited sense of climate change. We are beset with fanaticism, wars, viruses, acceleration of perverse imagery whose aim seems to be only to control our attention and possibly our wallets. What art can we create that fits into the context while keeping to our own idealistic aims. Do sedate landscapes make sense amidst the deliberate destruction of habitat or the perishing of species after species because of our heedless behaviour?
My belief is that we try to follow our own inclinations and training while at the same time extending our attention at times to include the suffering, the paradoxical, the variegated, the multiply contrary face of the present moment.
What could that possibly be in visual art? We have all the tools; we are a bit short on vision, though my hope is that this lack is just a passing phase.
In my own work, I am trying to present multiple narratives, often in the same canvas through layered work and through the use of “bubbles” of action such as are used in comix. I don’t paint in the comic book style, but I am willing to take whatever is useful. My rationale is that a picnic on the grass, may also be juxtaposed to questions of trashing the environment, enjoying the environment while beggars roam within view, all of that and the historical associations as well.
My subjects tend not to be the critically anointed subjects of much contemporary work, as good as this work might be. I am now working on subject matter featuring animals and what they signify for our humanity.
