The Sky is Falling | Extreme Weather| Infinity Pool 2013 - 2015
In the summer of 2013 after Toronto experienced a series of flooding, I become interested in the idea of a developing a contemporary Sublime aesthetic to explore the growing social anxiety as an increase in cases of extreme weather events was being reported in the news. I remembered a story my father told me about when Hurricane Hazel hit Toronto in 1954, and him and his 5 siblings floated on home made rafts in their flooded basement. For this work I wanted to explore the dual nature of weather and the concept of the Sublime. The work explored tensions between representation and abstraction and unexpected juxtapositions and art historical references.
I have been creatingg a visual language that juxtaposes a naive, childlike colour palette, with repetitive mark making using highly stylized shapes such as tear drops, stripes and outlines of clouds to suggest a decorative quality as though creating patterns for textiles. I have juxtaposed this decorative child like quality against a post apocalyptic and 19th century Romantic landscape painting aesthetic, as well as drawing from biblical and mythological understanding of symbols from nature such as lightning, thunder, rainbows and clouds.
