What Do We Know?

Acrylic on canvas.79cm x 89cm Framed.

Visiting Svalbard gave me a perspective on the precariousness of life in the extremes. Humanity perches in a few locations on the edge a kingdom that is not theirs. Svalbard is the Kingdom of the Polar Bear. However, the polar bear is one of the “Canary in the Coal Mine” animals threatened by Climate Change.

I sketched this polar bear skull from an exhibit in The Svalbard Musuem, Longyearbyen. The pictorial space in the composition is shallow, like a cave wall, with the skull precariously perched on a narrow ledge.

What Do We Know? was inspired by the financial crash of 2008 and the looming crisis of Climate Change. The title challenges the hubris of those in the financial markets whose ignorance and greed caused the crash.

I have long been interested in pre-historic cave art, wondering at the unknowable motifs. The “Bird Man”, considered an enigmatic prehistoric symbol of wisdom, is flipped here in the lower left to be a symbol for the hubris of the perpetrators of the financial crash. I have exaggerated his phallic pose.

The female figure in the top right has more layers of symbolism. For our ancestors, fertility and successful child rearing was an ever present, existential matter for every small tribe. In present times, female sexuality is instead hollowed-out and co-opted to sell us stuff we really do not need.

The mysterious little face above the polar bear skull really is a pre-historic motif. What Do We Know?

All my paintings are available as a limited edition Giclee print, LP Contact or at www.madeinross.co.uk