It's possible to see this artwork at Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam during the Sprouts I Show from the 11th of March until the 12th of April, 2024. The opening is on the 15th of 2024 at 20:30 when I am going to connect with visitors. https://www.arti.nl
Apocalypse isn't fiction as it's described. It's not gonna take seconds to lose what we experience thousands of years of human experience of life on earth. Every second and each of us contribute to it. Capitalism is killing the earth. We would have no place to go even if we built until the heavens a tower like Babel’s to run away from our reality. The reality will swirl us down while climbing on the ladder of our corrupt cravings carelessly.
We live in a world order we speak one language; housing shortage, pandemic, war, genocide, global warming… The one we created out of our interests and benefits. A world built with concrete, wood and metal cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen (that it might not be liable to admit water). We won’t be able to build houses to reach the heavens of our desires. I don’t know about gods which would perhaps have punished us with a clap of thunder but the water level with catch us in the blindless of superstition, wheeling and dealing, wrecked wisdom and sordidness. You name it. This scene is our reality and I am the reflector and audience standing by you. Once you’re on it, hang up yourself one step higher on the ladder, and you will be surrendered to your depraved/immoral desires. The great tower of capitalism is an old "single tongue" which is about to collapse but what it is doing and has done to us will leave a scar on earth and direct the future. It will rot and weaken unless we feed it.
In 2018, I lived around Deptford Wharf in south-east London. It's an area where it used to be a very rough ghetto but now it's more gentrified. I was jogging on Thames Path seeing Canary Wharf across the water. One of the part of old docks caught my eye. It became an obsession and a gateway to my thoughts later. I would sit down and wait for the tide to take it in. It looked lonely; with all the ferries, and boats zooming around it, avoiding it. It had no functionality I’ve witnessed. It made me think of everything we built around us; those we use for our benefit and leave to their destiny one day without thinking of what the consequences would be in the long
term. It could be a notion, system, or ideology as well. It connected with capitalism since I'm fed up with the financial and housing crisis. I was visually depicting/ swinging in the ocean of my imagination; all the finance men communicating every day to Canary Wharf to feed it. I pulled myself out of my fantasy as I would from reading Genesis’s story. I opened my eyes to reality. I watched the tide and breathed the breezy polluted air of London.
I completed this artwork in 6 years. I started it in London in 2018. I had to come back to Amsterdam not to lose my residency. I temporarily left the incomplete canvas in the living room of my friend. It was trapped in London during Covid. Later I was broke and I couldn’t finance a visa or transportation to bring it back to Amsterdam where I live. I saved up and brought it back in 2023. I worked on it in between temporary art studios. It embodies the traces of many places and to me, it's powerful therefore.
Many artworks, books and exhibitions resonated with me heartily which I am thankful for and urged me to complete this work. No need to say the myth of The Tower of Babel in Genesis and artworks influenced by the narrative in many different civilizations and cultures. The poster of the exhibition Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen stopped me in front of the Rijksmuseum while rushing to another job by bike. I visited the exhibition later where I met "Breathe, Walk, Die” by Ugo Rondinone. I was later hooked up with a book while searching for some words around the context. "The reality of runaway climate change is inextricably linked with the mass consumerist, capitalist society in which we live. And the cult of endless growth, and endless consumption of cheap disposable commodities isn't only destroying the world, it is damaging ourselves and our way of being. How do we stop the impending catastrophe, and how can we create a movement capable of confronting it head-on?” The book Post-Growth Living (For an Alternative Hedonism) by Kate Soper. I would not skip to say the climate protestors made me think of their actions at the museums. As an artist, to find my voice in environmental causes, I want to use my art for provocation instead of taking the risk of destroying one. It's possible to see this artwork at Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam during Sprouts I Show from the 11th of March until the 12th of April, 2024. The opening is on the 15th of 2024 at 20:30 when I am going to connect with visitors. https://www.arti.nl Please contact me for private viewings. Thank you for reading. You can get a limited edition print of Contemporary Apocolypse 2024 click here