Higher Ground 2017

photo credit: Christian Capurro, exhibition at Wagner Contemporary 4 - 29 Mar 2017 as part of Art Month Sydney

installation photo credit: Silversalt

featured in Art Collector Magazine as a show 'Not to be Missed' Issue 79

The recent floods in Tasmania caused an unexpected response from its arachnid population. Deprived of their earth-based sanctuaries and food supply, spiders in their millions enveloped whole forests with their webs creating a Christo-like phenomenon of web-shrouded canopies hovering above the raging waters. In their desperation for survival, they inadvertently created a vision of weird gothic majesty, ethereal, fragile and breathtaking to behold. Andrew Gaynor 2016

With regards to the events that inspired Higher Ground, there are various environmental analogies that could be drawn - extreme events related to climate change similar to the one described above, the remarkable resilience of the natural world, etc but like the works in Protected, my response in Higher Ground is primarily an emotional one, triggering feelings of fragility and vulnerability in a world that often feels quite random and unpredictable. In times of strife, we too are throwing out our silky threads, hoping the updraft of warm air will carry us to safety.