Interlude Exhibition – David Crawford
Artist’s statement
“The fundamental purpose of the Interlude exhibition is to communicate to the viewer the aesthetic beauty in life and a sense of affective piety that can be found inherent in our surrounding landscape. Life during the coronavirus pandemic has been generally challenging and impacted upon all of our social networks. To chime with these circumstances there are no figures in the artworks that offer viewers any “human” point of reference. This absence of figures conveys my intention that viewers are free to interpret these works from their own contemplative perspectives.
In the spaces between earth, sea and sky I also make pictorial reference to the fact that even “viewer inquisitiveness” can be an enticement in the exterior world. I am playfully and surreptitiously implying through “simple” imagery that we are all eventually ensnared into the depicted indifferent landscape by the very acts of our own curiosity and intrigue. One additional implication in the Interlude exhibition is that through abject fascination and absorption in temporal strivings the majority of humanity will inadvertently perpetuate continued climate discord.
A considered glance at the Black and White works indicates to the viewer that they portray messages about the frightful consequences climate change will inevitably exact upon humans. However looking beyond the manifest imagery there are other more latent symbols and signifiers that are implanted into the pieces. Within these art works, ambiguity and various allegorical representations lend themselves to multiple interpretations.
If we consider use of line in the artworks, one can observe how the horizon often focuses the viewer’s gaze on the division between sky and earth. This partition suggests a borderland between figurative and more abstracted areas: a liminal space - I would propose - that is more about Colour and tonality. Even the ground itself suggests a pull towards abstraction. Yet it is in the inherent “Strangeness” of simultaneously portraying both abstraction and recognizable spaces that a recurrent motif of finding beauty in our own personal reflective experiences emerges from this exhibition”.
