I used to feel self-conscious that I was an artist. Compared to other careers like teaching or medicine, art-making seemed like a self-indulgent profession as it revolves around me and my interests. I thought, “Why should anyone care about my artwork? What’s the benefit for them?”
The truth is, making art does have merit. Art has the ability to convey thoughts and emotions that are beyond the scope of language. It lets us experience new things, and helps to expand our awareness of the world. Art can also bring us closer together, and reminds us what it is to be alive. So it turns out, it would only be selfish of me if I never shared my art with the world.
I believe a fundamental role of an artist is to create artwork that captures the current zeitgeist, so others may better understand what is happening in the world. An artist transmutes their insights through their art to reveal the world today, and where things may be tomorrow. In effect, the artist shines a light into the darkness, to reveal a glimpse of the future.
When I look around today, I see a number of things that concern me. Our society has an insatiable appetite to consume everything in sight. I view climate change to be the most important issue we face today, and yet frustratingly, we are not responding swiftly enough to this existential threat. Instead we seem addicted to an unsustainable paradigm that is leading us towards a dark, uncertain future.
I had an idea for a metaphorical way to depict this grim trajectory I see us currently on. I envisioned a vast metropolis of towering skyscrapers, interlaced with roads and tunnels. The immense scale of this city would dwarf its inhabitants. The focal point would be a vast traffic-laden boulevard, flowing though a deep, urban canyon. Everything would recede towards a single vanishing point, far in the distance. This would represent the future that awaits us.
I made a few preparatory studies for my composition. I imagined my canvas would need to be quite large, as I wanted the viewer to feel engulfed by the skyscrapers looming overhead and the swath of traffic flowing below. I hoped it would produce a feeling of vertigo. And to accentuate the dreariness of the scene, I chose an anemic, taupe color for my palette. I used a black grease pencil to render my city on the canvas. This allowed me to smudge my drawing with solvent for an atmospheric sfumato, so the city would feel engulfed in smog.
At this point I hesitated. I had initially thought to create a very detailed image. But I liked my painting the way it currently looked. The city looked ghostly and mysterious. I wondered if I needed to do anything further. So I put my painting aside, and started an ink drawing to help me determine what to do next. The drawing became increasingly complex as I kept adding details, until eventually, it grew tiresome. I found rendering every window on every building, and every car and truck, extremely taxing. I had to force myself to finish the drawing, but in the end it was worthwhile. The drawing helped me understand that too much visual information made the image stifling. I didn’t need lots of details to convey a sense of awe.
I returned to my painting and solidified the buildings and traffic a bit further, but strove to maintain a looseness. I didn’t want my painting to become overly illustrative. I added a few small details however, such as flagpoles and water towers on the buildings, and a few small people here and there. I also added billboards displaying the word MORE. I hoped this bit of dark humor would alleviate the bleakness of my painting and make it more approachable. It’s a motif I’ve used before in several paintings, as a metaphor for consumption. Seen collectively, these signs become a ceaseless mantra of an insatiable society.
We are so engrossed in our daily lives, focused upon our respective struggles, that we may not realize how our civilization marches inexorably along a path, towards an uncertain future. We are like a bunch of ants working within a colony. We try to fulfill our role within society, but are powerless to control the agenda of the whole. The hive mind of the collective has its own trajectory, but it may not be for our betterment. The question we should be asking ourselves is, where is this colony taking us?
The painting is titled Course of Empire.
