cooladelaide.org

Date: 11 February 2012
Author: Ann Mc Culloch
Source: The Conversation

“Artists are shape-shifters and in this there is a perennial, ferocious hope; the hope which transforms, which whispers of possibility, of vision, of change and radical healing. Existing art about climate change has this characteristic, acknowledging the truth and severity of the issue but also affirming within it something of grace, seeing the starlight within the night.”“ – Jay Griffiths, 2009

How can art communicate to a sceptical public the current state of climate? Scientists agree human influence is paramount in explaining climate change, but the public at large is not drawn naturally to science education. With this in mind, art’s power to target the emotions of an audience could be particularly effective.

Metro Gallery in Melbourne has been running an exhibition, “Climate Change: The Wonder and the Dread”. We are investigating audience response to the art works (and whether the art persuades in a manner not otherwise achieved through intellectual means), and the processes involved in the art making itself.

We think insights communicated in images and metaphor might contribute to the development and implementation of environmental policy by communicating in ways that have not been achieved by science communication.
The artists in the exhibition responded to the idea of climate change in diverse ways.
Stormie Mill’s vast spread of blue with ice fringes at its base is spectacular in its impact. The melting ice is the subject and yet the first response is one of wonder at the beauty perceived in what is indeed catastrophic. The painter produced what was in some ways an abstract painting (titled, “Antarctica”), but it simultaneously brings to mind the experience of melting ice on a vast scale. The depth and allure of the blue expanse seduces the viewer and leads inevitably towards reflection.

Vincent Fantauzzo, in contrast to Mill’s engagement with water, creates a painting of fire. It is fire unlike any fire one has ever seen: it seems to embody the concept of fire itself. It is intoxicating in its drawing power – one wants to enter it, even knowing its deadly power. Of course fire was, we are reminded, stolen from the gods by Prometheus to aid us as functioning humans. Its beauty and its terror is immanently embodied in a land that human beings continue to misuse and abuse. The fire becomes, of our own making, a brutal avenger. And so the thoughts around the painting emerge as groups that surround it at the exhibition discuss its impact on them.

Daniel Smith’s “Inferno” deals directly with a fire that is in the process of destroying homes and lives. This painting in the super-realist mode shows that the actual event of fire belongs by nature in “the super real”.

Read full article in The Conversation