“The dawn said something strange to me;
I couldn’t ask it why,
It gave me just a single day,
Then faded like a sigh”.
Andrew Mezei
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
We no longer hear the signals nature sends us. Our relationship to nature is fractured: last year, leading scientists warned that we are probably the last generation that has enough time to avoid a likely mass extinction event*. Yet our society seems strangely unresponsive to these warnings.
The paintings run the course of a single day, from dawn to evening. Within this short day, I search with measured urgency for our place in nature; a way to reconnect with the rich ecosystems which support our lives.
Our hope, or our potential destruction are contained in our choices around such things as technology, ideology and policy. The paintings explore this duality through objects which could be either ruins or jewels in a landscape where humans might ultimately be reconciled to nature, or entirely extinguished from it.
I seek a spiritual footing on shifting ground. For guidance, I look not to prophets, but to the knowledge bearers of our age, and I turn to a creation story more ancient and complex than imagination could conceive.
In summary, this exhibition is my attempt to absorb the metaphysical implications of our civilization in transition. The journey begins with a red dawn and becomes a race against the darkness.
This exhibition was held at Catherine Asquith Gallery, Melbourne, Vic in 2012