THE SKY IS FALLING - Skyscapes and the anthropocene landscape

Ocholla, Catherine

THE SKY IS FALLING - Skyscapes and the anthropocene landscape

Master Thesis

2022

Abstract

The practical component of this project comprises an installation of paintings exploring a narrative theme concerning the atmosphere (air, sky and space) in our future present. Alluding to Anthropogenic factors such as contamination, global warming, conflict, and neoliberal claims to the Commons of air and space, the premise of my project is speculative. [World] building on real life experiences that are rendered visually credible by the use of realist and photorealist painting techniques, the world that I create is familiar, partly autobiographic and recognisable, but centred around some unspecified catastrophe. Supporting the idea of a narrative still-in-progress, the painterly conceit of ‘non-finito' serves to undercut the visual certitudes of illusionism. Here the process of painting is visibly evident, rendering the works, or world they depict, as ‘in the making'. In support, the accompanying theoretical text: explores artists' creation of fictional/ imaginary worlds using landscapes and the role of science and speculative fiction; and traverses the visualisation of Anthropogenic concerns through landscapes, particularly in the use of skyscapes/ cloudscapes. Relative to the practical's presentation as an installation and execution as paintings, the text provides case studies of contemporary landscape painters who exploit the capacity of the conjunction of realism, photorealism and non-finito to convince viewers of their painted fictional and imaginary worlds while at the same time subverting such convictions. Mark Tansey's work, Action Painting II (1984) in particular, is examined in this regard. In the South African context, painters such as Luan Nel, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, Ndikhumbule Ngqinambi, and MJ Lourens play with different visual registers to reflect the complexities of the future present. Others, such as Robyn Penn, raise real world Anthropogenic concerns by using diversely executed panels or installations of paintings. Penn's installations engage climate change through using the cloud as a major trope of uncertainty. ‘The sky is falling' thus attempts to reflect the unseen possibilities of visual narratives' engagement with ongoing global crises.

Keywords

Fine Art

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