Stories from a broken landscape
Mixed media on board
40 cm x 30 cm
Artist’s Statement
Stories from a Broken Landscape consists of 100 small artworks that fragment the landscape into miniature, recycled worlds, while also creating dialogues among the individual pieces. The 100 bottle caps contain and attempt to preserve traces of the landscape. As part of the modern South African environment, we also encounter remnants of plastic and pollution. Within the bottle caps, the artist interweaves natural and synthetic elements to comment on a landscape that is increasingly neglected—breaking Mother Nature’s heart through pollution.
In her efforts to preserve the landscape, the artist had to break it into smaller, digestible pieces and exert control over nature, echoing humanity’s ongoing attempts to dominate the natural world. This human control is also reflected in the grid structure, which divides and seeks to impose logic on nature, as well as in the bright colors and manipulation of natural elements within the artwork.
This piece places human control and the uncontrollable, preservation and pollution, in constant dialogue—culminating in a story told through a broken landscape. It echoes a plea from nature, urging us to stop breaking it down, to cease our attempts at domination, and to nurture it as it has nurtured us.
Gallery
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