Umbrella, granite rocks. Zennor Hill, Cornwall 1st September 2018
A work of art in the environment consisting of an umbrella clinging to a granite rock on a windy and misty hilltop in Cornwall.
The umbrella in this work can be seen as representing shelter. Perhaps it’s shelter from bad weather caused by climate change or global warming. The shelter provided by an umbrella in the face of climate change is however woefully inadequate. The flimsy structure of the umbrella can be seen as echoing humanity’s flimsy attempts to counter climate change.
Contemporary art and climate change: Stranded Object
Ink, gouache, digital, paper. 28x19cm. July 2018
A work about climate change and global warming. The work contains definite ominous overtones. These are probably linked to the general atmosphere of foreboding that permiated society when the artwork was created in 2018 and that still permeate society today, chief amongst which was the phenomenon of global warming or climate change, which more and more threatens to disrupt the earth’s entire ecosystem and to turn civilisation as we know it upside down. And this is just the beginning. I’ve been interested in environmental issues since the 1960s when environmentalism was chiefly concerned with the various threats to wildlife as a result of human activity. Climate change or global warming were not generally in people’s awareness back then. Whatever the object is in this painting, it is abandoned or marooned on a featureless landscape that probably represents the devastated earth following the ravages of climate change and environmental destruction. The fact that the object looks very large is probably symbolic of the enormity of the threat that climate change represents. The imaginary object in the image bears some resemblance to an organic form, possibly a part of an animal’s anatomy – perhaps a horn or a jawbone. The slender forms that protrude from what may be the teeth of a jawbone or could possibly be legs, turning the form into something like an upturned crustacean. Whatever it is, the object has the feel of a decaying life-form. The object also has something of the feel of an unnatural artefact – perhaps a piece of rubble following the destruction of a building (with the slender forms representing metal rods in reinforced concrete).
Having said all that, the work was not created with any particular symbolism or meaning consciously in mind. I’ve worked backwards from the finished image to find its possible meaning. I’m sure that it also has meanings that are purely to do with the workings of my own brain.
Contemporary art and climate change – breathing on a polluted planet.
Digital image. First version: 1991; this version: 2015
A work of environmental contemporary art concerning climate change and pollution. This work is created in a cartoon-like style. There are several reasons for this. One is that I create quite a lot of cartoons (which have been published in newspapers such as the Guardian and magazines such as Private Eye), and another is that I think that the cartoon style is a particularly good and direct way of communicating about subjects such as the environment, global warming, pollution and the various crises that are currently afflicting our planet. One of the appeals of the cartoon art style is that it generally lacks ambiguity, so its message is clear and unmistakable, which is very important with subjects that are as important as climate change, global warming and the environmental issues. Other contemporary art styles are often at their best when they contain a degree of uncertainty or ambiguity about what is being said, requiring the viewer to interpret the work as they see fit. Contemporary art that puts forward a message unambiguously can often tend to come across as rather dead, didactic and hectoring, which I think the cartoon style tends to avoid. Also of course, cartoon art, due to its nature, can easily be reproduced in print or electronically without loss of quality (both physical quality and emotional quality), thus making it available to a much wider audience than most contemporary art – which can only be a good thing when the work tackles important subjects such as the environment and climate change.
