REFLECTING TRANSITION
There’s something different about Autumn; a sense of energy, movement, and change; the world is in transition from one state of being to another, there’s a hint of unpredictability in the air, and we see it outwardly and feel it internally.
How do visual artists convey process and change, turmoil, or a state of flux? The following artists, Sherre Wilson-Liljegren, Adam Daniel Watkins, Alice Zilberberg, and Mark Cross, beguilingly capture our attention with their visual acumen and simultaneously ask us to contemplate perplexing truths, dualities and illusions, and elicit reflection and consideration of our own responses; whether consternation or complicity.
Sherre Wilson-Liljegren’s mixed-media paintings juxtapose arresting and stately beauty with impermanence; gorgeous, monumental landscapes and light-infused architectural interiors - locations it’s easy to assume have existed for decades and at first glance seem unaffected by time. Gaze a moment more, though, and one notices that a historic house appears open to the elements, with scant remnants of stately, antique furniture, and the slow ebb of water across a beautiful parquet floor. In one painting, two baboons lounge on a couch and appear comfortable and familiar in a gentile drawing-room. Questions abound; where are the human inhabitants? Has Global Warming caused the waters to rise this far, and we hadn’t noticed….? Yet in Wilson-Liljgren’s paintings, it is beauty that reigns; we are lulled by beauty and perhaps seduced into holding dual realities in our mind.
Adam Daniel Watkin’s subjects at first appear quiet and reserved, without action or intention, yet a hidden tension brews below the surface making it hard to look away; we are caught in the unknowing and the wanting to know. In ‘Patience’, for example, the diner is both outwardly composed, but also self-absorbed; we wonder what event has just occurred and search for illusive clues. In ‘Headlines’, the reader’s attention has just shifted; he gazes intently out and appears to engage us in a question. We recognize a fleeting transitional moment flickering his face, and the feeling is familiar, but maddeningly, we can only guess at the content of his thoughts. Watkins artfully taps in to our desire to relate and connect to one another through shared emotional experience, and also reminds us that we can only guess at each other’s circumstances and reality.
Be Here Bison (2019), Alice Zilberberg
The beauty and simplicity of Alice Zilberberg’s photography at first mask a complex set of references. In her Meditations series, Zilberberg draws attention to mindfulness, wellbeing, and nature conservation; intended to be both real and unreal, Zilberberberg uses minimalist, ‘wrong’ backgrounds to represent displacement, and also to to convey a calm, contemplative sensibility; with all context removed, her images bring us into the present moment.
Gyre Vortex Jetsam Collection (2012) Mark Cross
Mark Cross’s hyperreal paintings are less quiet but no less contemplative. Cross depicts altered landscapes drawn from his years living on the Pacific island of Nuie island, and focuses attention on his subject's reactions to extreme environmental change. Cross’ humans physically grapple with dystopian scenarios and confront the consequences of environmental abuse. They are distressed by circumstances, but by no means compliant - their acute physical struggle a metaphor for the mental determination and will be required to combat such progressed circumstances. Cross’ is an accomplished realist, and his subject matter is at once crystal clear and fraught with questions - we are asked to consider our own fortitude in the face of looming environmental challenges such as pollution and global warming.
Via beauty, realism, and altered reality, these visual artists capture and contextualize moments of change; they cause us to think, offer questions, not answers, and create visual calm that allows us the space to tap into what lies under the surface. We are gently prompted to look deeper and discover what we know, what we feel, and what we grapple with.
New World (2014) Sherre Wilson-Liljegren
by Nerissa Bardfeld