_RESET

Stemming from my personal pondering of such a dystopia, I produced a triptych of paintings depicting a surreal apocalyptic world where enormous animals once subjugated to humans are now the supreme sovereigns of this world.

The mood I wish to invoke upon the audience is not one of pessimism and nihilistic despair. But rather one of relief and catharsis at the prospect that the life and nature surrounding us are far more tenacious than we are, and shall persevere in forms we cannot yet fathom even once we are no more. It is so easy for human hubris to expect our legacies to be eternal. However, the flow of time will reveal that just as the drip of water will eventually chisel through any mountain, all that exist must eventually decay into nothingness.

“In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rock feller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighways.”

– Chuck Palahniuk

Let us imagine a dystopian future, where long after the collapse of civilization, all remnants of our society are left to crumble and corrode; bit by bit, they are reclaimed by nature. Where one might expect a desolate wasteland, instead you’d find a thriving wildlife within the exclusion zone. The wildlife, having been expelled from their homes for millenniums, finally return to their original habitat. A reset of the world, which perhaps could only happen once you and I are dead and gone. Would this be the final cataclysm or the beginnings of a new Eden?

Reset, 2024 Acrylic on canvas

30 cm x 40 cm, 40cm x 80 cm, 30cm x 40 cm