I am still in the process of completing several of the drawings, and will be showing the bulk of this work in a solo show to be held at McGuffey Art Center in November 2012; the working title of this show is “Imagined Land-&City-Scapes.”
The basic premise of the exhibition is to explore visually our approach to natural earth changes, and to reveal the human insignificance regarding attempts to prevent and or control such disasters. I don’t mean to suggest that my goal is a polemic (such as taking a position on the “global warming debate”): I have always liked George Carlin’s rant about the arrogance of people trying to save the planet, when in actuality “The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas”. Rather, I enjoy the metaphorical possibilities of illustrating inevitable changes and disruptions that occur in life, and let the audience interpret the symbols ( “sea change” “paradigm shift”) for themselves.
The style I have been emulating to explore these topics is the rather beautiful tradition of educational illustration from textbooks and encyclopedias. The small pictures describing something as massive as a volcano or earthquake are cutouts that make the earth’s crust look like a piece of layer cake drawn in two or three point perspective. I am aware of perspective in both meanings of the word: the mechanics of the vanishing point, as well as a detached “perspective” of creating massive cataclysms and then reducing them to pastel pieces of cake.
