Where? Oil on linen 50 x 50 cm
I am continuing with my driving/traveling theme...even though I know it's tangential and thus perhaps somewhat tenuous....but certainly not feeble! My recent previous posts and paintings that, also tenuously but not feebly, touch upon the driving/travelling theme include On My Travels I Saw - Are We There Yet? - Hope and Looking Out The Windows.
For new readers, the kind of driving/traveling I think about are not drives in cars, airplane flights, bus journeys or even luxury cruises, but rather much more exciting possibilities...jaunts that trip into the imagination, slide around perspective, excite metaphor and reveal cosmic potentials.
REAR VISION MIRRORS
In my last post Looking Out The Windows I use a short phrase, written by motoring critic Jeremy Clarkson in a review of a 1999 BMW wagon, to launch into a metaphoric exploration of looking out the windows. Clarkson wrote, Yes, it wasn't equipped with other modern features such as parking sensors, but I solved that when manoeuvring by simply looking out the windows. .
So, looking out the windows helps us literally and metaphorically practise perspective, seeing the close and far distances. Handy, in an age where repeated and continuous experience with the short distance between eye and screen exposes us to, and threatens us with, myopic sight and perspective.
In the middle of writing my last post I also thought...well what about the metaphoric possibilities of the rear vision mirror.
The rear vision mirror presents us with the fascinating potential for keeping an eye on the past, as we live in the present and look to the future. However, cars and other vehicles, are becoming more computerised and automated, providing occupants with entertainment gadgets, and drivers with assistance packages for parking, reversing, orientating and more. The driverless car/vehicle, already in existence, fitted out with all the latest gizmos, may mean that no-one needs to look out the windows ...or look into the rear-vision mirror. If we loose sight of the past and don't look out the windows to the future, maybe we'll just experience a constant myopic present?
To see adequately into the future, we have to expand our view of the past. This quote from
The New Universe and The Human Future by cosmologist Prof Joel Primack, and co-author Lawyer and philosopher Nancy Ellen Abrams, says it all really! It is the first line of chapter 5 providentially titled This Cosmically Pivotal Moment. Note that they say we have to expand our view of the past. Myopia is not a handy afflication when expanding 'our view' is called for.
WHERE? oil on linen 50 x 50 cm
So, to the painting above. 'Where?' implies a question about a physical position, but it can also ask about a position in time. The image could be the birth of the Universe, as if seen in a rear vision mirror, which is kind of what happens when cosmologists and astronomers examine images of newly discovered cosmic entities. Light reaching us now started its journey eons ago; the past licks at our heels, and sends light and shadows into the future. But, if we don't look out the windows or look into the rear vision mirror we might miss the light and be caught in the shadows.
And, of course, the journey maybe be a spiritual one destined to reveal a place within us.
Which brings me to another painting...and question:
Are We There Yet?
Are We There Yet? Oil on linen 80 x 140 cm
UPDATE
Where? was a finalist [one of 70 out 2000 entries] in 'Seeing Stars' an art award hosted by the SKA [Square Kilometre Array] the world's largest and most sensitive telescope being built here in Australia and Sth Africa. It is a collaborative project with many nations on board.
The finalists' exhibition was held in Melbourne at the Yarra Gallery, Federation Square.
You can see the finalists HERE
Where? was a finalist [one of 70 out 2000 entries] in 'Seeing Stars' an art award hosted by the SKA [Square Kilometre Array] the world's largest and most sensitive telescope being built here in Australia and Sth Africa. It is a collaborative project with many nations on board.
The finalists' exhibition was held in Melbourne at the Yarra Gallery, Federation Square.
You can see the finalists HERE
COSMIC ADDRESS
My next exhibition:
15 to 27 October 2013 at Graydon Gallery, Brisbane.
I am really excited about this show. Shall keep you posted!
Until next week,
Kathryn
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