Dolphins in Venice, 2020-21
Pen, gouache, watercolour, pencil on paper 183 x 135 cm At the beginning of the Corona virus pandemic there were lots of stories going around that the human lockdown was good news for nature: there were sightings of wild animals in big cities all over the world, and the sighting of dolphins and swans retaking the canals in Venice went viral. However, later these stories appeared to be fake and the dolphins were filmed off the coast in Sardinia, not Venice. People’s desperate desire to see some good coming out of the pandemic and the hope that nature is strong enough to recover, that no matter what we’ve done, nature is powerful enough to rise above it, appeared to be just that, hope and desire, but not true. In the work there are dinosaur skeletons again, hugely popular since Jurassic Park in the 90’s, and blurring the lines between what is real, what is fantasy and what is extinct. My worry is that by the popularity of dinosaurs we imbed our children and ourselves with an acceptance of animal species going extinct, only living on in picture books and as plastic toys. The swimmer on the right is trying to swim with the dolphins, but her hands are covered in a black oil like substance, as in blood covering the hands of the guilty. At the top we see parts of skyscrapers in this unsustainable circle of life, whilst the sun is going down on us at the bottom. The snake at the bottom gets blamed for expelling us all from paradise whilst now snakes are going extinct themselves, thanks to us. In the middle there is a spine, referring to my own struggles back then with severe back pain, yet at the same time the spine is visually trying to hold this mess together. 〈 海豚在威尼斯〉, 2020-21
原子筆、不透明水彩、透明水彩、鉛筆、紙 183 x 135 cm 在新冠肺炎肆虐的開端,有好多的傳謠說封城對於自然界來說是一大好消息。網路上瘋傳著野生動物「重返」世界多個大城市以及海豚、天鵝重新「拿下」威尼斯的運河的影像、報導。然而事後證明,許多這些故事是假的,這些海豚經查證後證實是攝於義大利薩丁尼亞島的海岸,而非威尼斯。在疫情期間,人們強烈地渴望看見好事的發生,並期盼大自然足夠強壯──無論人類如何破壞,它終將能夠克服、自我復育。人類的渴望終歸是希冀,不是事實。 從作品中可以見到恐龍化石。從九十年代、《侏羅紀公園 》推出後,恐龍化石大受歡迎,模糊了真實、幻想與滅絕之間的界線。我的擔憂是恐龍的流行程度會讓我們以及孩子接受物種滅絕的可能性,接受這些物種的存在僅此於圖畫書和塑膠玩具。畫作右側有一名游泳的人正嘗試與海豚一起游泳,她的雙手佈滿黑油般的物質,就如同兩手沾染鮮血的罪人。畫作反映出一種不具永續性的生命循環:在上方我們可以看見高樓大廈的身影,在底部則見太陽西下。太陽旁的蛇因將人類驅逐出天堂而備受指責,諷刺的是,蛇也因人類面臨絕種危機。畫作中央是脊椎,象徵我前些陣子相當嚴重的背痛以及它帶給我的掙扎。然而,在這幅作品中,正是脊椎在嘗試撐起這團泥淖。 |
Back to work 2019-21
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