Lost
2015, Lost, Glue tempera on oak, 650 x 650 x 500 mm.
I acquired a 2-foot diameter oak trunk that had been felled because of acute oak decline, a disease that threatens the extinction of the English oak. When I counted the rings it was 56 years old, by chance it had been an acorn when I was born. I researched how many species had become extinct in that time and to my shock discovered hundreds. This fed the idea of hollowing out the trunk and painting 56 plants and animals that had become extinct in my lifetime - one for each year. The use of the particular trunk emphasised the time frame of its lost contemporaries.
The interior support surface references the largely hidden, unknown rate of extinction and also hints at pre-historic cave paintings and the reverence that our ancestors gave to nature - a reverence that has been eroded. The connection to Palaeolithic painting was emphasised by using only earth pigments and distemper (rabbit skin glue medium).
The interior support surface references the largely hidden, unknown rate of extinction and also hints at pre-historic cave paintings and the reverence that our ancestors gave to nature - a reverence that has been eroded. The connection to Palaeolithic painting was emphasised by using only earth pigments and distemper (rabbit skin glue medium).