The Slow Cancellation of the Future

The current climate crisis has been explored by myriad contemporary artists nationally and internationally across all media, but few have used coal itself as an art medium to symbolically reflect on the potentially dire future. At the same time, the aesthetic tactic of abstraction has a long history in art, including in relation to depictions of the landscape. This project combines these two trajectories of enquiry to create a large-scale series of paintings.‘The Slow Cancellation of the Future’ is a series of large-scale artworks on canvas that innovatively combines the application of coal dust, gesso, and varnish to render scenes of semi-abstracted landscapes. The paintings were created to explore how these material and compositional choices, working as pictorial tactics of abstraction, can symbolise and communicate existential concerns of climate anxiety. In an Australian context, this symbolism is amplified through coal’s dual position as driver of national economic growth and catastrophic anthropogenic climate change. Laboriously applied to the canvas surface as layers of ground black carbon particulate, the coal produces layers of red and brown tones that build up into shimmering gradients that are further enriched by careful application of archival varnish. Without a clear horizon, but still bound by a rigid gesso border of symbolic restriction, the works both resist and reward viewers’ attempts to read the image as a conceivable landscape. Looking through the picture plane to find an orientation leaves the viewer uncertain of the scene, creating an experiential mirror of the larger concerns of our unknown collective future in an era of climate crisis.The artworks formed part of a competitive Australia Council new work grant. The series was one of three large-scale artworks presented as part of the major solo exhibition ‘The Slow Cancellation of the Future’ in partnership with Milani Gallery and Brisbane City Council from 9 – 16 October 2021. The exhibition was favourably reviewed by Pamela See in ArtsHub