SERIES / EXHBITIONS
Even In Arcadia
Exhibiting as part of Echo at Working Dog Gallery 5-23 November 2024:
89 Chandos St, St Leonards
Even in Arcadia is a journey through idealised landscapes which seek to evoke a mythical past in which man, gods and nature existed in harmony. The explore the
English eighteenth and nineteenth century ideology of landscape as narrative art, especially the picturesque, in which nature is ‘perfected’ so as to fit into an imagined frame at every turn, for the delight of the human eye.
As such there is a mix of order and (apparent) disorder, of godly realms, the hand of man, and neo-classical references connecting the two. The dis-ease of untamed nature, verdant and luxuriant, is held at bay, but only through a continuous and conscious struggle against it and to improve it.
The series juxtaposes the wide view of the picturesque containing foreground, middle and background and featuring rivers, streams and lakes which whisper of grand and mysterious journeys, of both life and death, with the intimate perspective of a single traveller to these invented spaces.
With its title referencing Poussin’s depiction of a lost Golden Age, Even in Arcadia attempts to elicit the same vague sense of loneliness and time both lost and ongoing that pervades such works.
The 5 works below, exhibited as part of Echo group exhibit, are part of of a wider series, with more works from the series to be uploaded soon.
