Big Face-off
Big Face-off, oil on canvas
This painting is located at the interface between man and nature, where man has settled the earth, and constantly makes unrelenting demands on the land. The relationship between the two is an uneasy one of continuous strife and irreconcilable friction. They are in opposition to one another and yet they can never be separated. It is a situation that exists between them, a kind of impasse. They are essentially different from one another, yet there is this paradox that they are part of each other.
The mountains and buildings are made of the same stuff, that is, humans have fashioned their civilization out of the stuff of the earth. The man-made structures in fact reflect the structures of nature, they are made in the image of nature. We reflect nature back to itself, we see our human nature manifest in the natural world, that is we project our human nature onto our environment. The beauty of the planet earth overwhelms us at the same time as we do violence to it.
But the earth is unmoved, as man goes closer and closer to the brink of disaster while exploiting the earth's resources. The buildings, at once beautiful and ugly, get taller and taller, but still man is faced with the emptiness of existence and the inevitability of death. Skyscrapers now symbolize our highest spiritual aspirations and search for meaning, as Gothic cathedrals once did.
This painting is located at the interface between man and nature, where man has settled the earth, and constantly makes unrelenting demands on the land. The relationship between the two is an uneasy one of continuous strife and irreconcilable friction. They are in opposition to one another and yet they can never be separated. It is a situation that exists between them, a kind of impasse. They are essentially different from one another, yet there is this paradox that they are part of each other.
The mountains and buildings are made of the same stuff, that is, humans have fashioned their civilization out of the stuff of the earth. The man-made structures in fact reflect the structures of nature, they are made in the image of nature. We reflect nature back to itself, we see our human nature manifest in the natural world, that is we project our human nature onto our environment. The beauty of the planet earth overwhelms us at the same time as we do violence to it.
But the earth is unmoved, as man goes closer and closer to the brink of disaster while exploiting the earth's resources. The buildings, at once beautiful and ugly, get taller and taller, but still man is faced with the emptiness of existence and the inevitability of death. Skyscrapers now symbolize our highest spiritual aspirations and search for meaning, as Gothic cathedrals once did.
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