Thanks to everyone who came out last night for the opening at Lens Gallery - if you couldn't make it, you can see what you missed in the timelapse and read the statement below.
See you all again next month!
Mysterious monuments, isles illuminated by a glowing firmament, blobby overgrown forests bursting with ripeness, rot, or both.
These are places that exist on their own. The environments seem far away in some other time until they are abruptly populated with figures cartoonish but not unlike us- a mix of aloof and skeptical; roaming through surroundings where they do not quite fit.
The forms of land, stones, trees and architecture seem durable, certain to outlast the efforts and activities of the figures traveling through them. It is only briefly that our activities (whether frantic or placid, seeking pleasure or violence) animate these old, knowing places. If the world is like a stage, the stage persists with its ancient indifference, having watched drama after drama play out. In the highs and lows of art we preserve these activities for a bit longer - a dozen, one hundred, maybe a few thousand years.
Through art we may look on and look back, to see something of ourselves and imagine that we have arrived at greater understanding, insights and awareness beyond those early times. So too will others look back at us with a mixture of amusement and nostalgia at our little lives of struggles and successes. We build new monuments even as societies fall, cultures displaced. Like cartoon reruns, the absurd poetry continues, with or without our watching.
