Transience is about big ideas, the ebb and flow of the epic human journey from conception, through the present, death and into the vastness of an unknown future. The work engages by the juxtaposition of ideas and seemingly unrelated images, sequenced to create a narrative that poses questions about nature, our capabilities, vulnerabilities and temporal existence. Transience was the principal reason for receiving the FORMAT Daylight portfolio review award in 2022.
This work is about collective consciousness. It sits within the philosophical contexts shaped by the works of 20th thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud and artists such as Rinko Kawauchi and Wolfgang Tillmans.
Many of the images are juxtaposed to operate in subliminal ways to reveal multi-layered meanings. The open palm for example, can be read as fate or simply a gesture to move. One might ask: what does the ritualised collective activity on a river bank signify – is it an expression of advanced intelligence? References to mathematics and language are interspersed with ideas of death and the Cosmos. The image of the wasp could possibly be a portent of death or simply an expression of materiality. There are several horizons in the work which may allude to awe and aspiration or separation that can be a barrier which divides the earthly from the celestial, humans from gods.