SARAH DAVIS – student number – 515110 – EXPLORING DRAWING MEDIA
CRITICAL ESSAY – FOR PART 5
The impact of human involvement and intervention within the natural world has led to a detrimental effect on the future of our planet and has led to the decline of many animal species: Many contemporary Artists are using visual media to explore the catastrophic and fragile future o the f Earth.
The future of the planet and the rapid extinction of many species over the last 40 years has during 2018 been a major source of discussion in the media. We have been reminded that time is rapidly running out for the planet. This major issue resonates and concerns me so for this reason I have chosen two very different artists who explore themes concerned with the environment.
Mark Dion is mostly known as a conceptual artist. In Dion’s work there is a prominent multi-layered and dual theme that combines scientific and historical threads that he uses to explore the past with today’s changing attitude’s and modern research and knowledge. Dion is also asking us to be aware and take responsibility of the environment instead of assuming ownership of the natural world. This idea of delving into a theme and coming at it from entirely different angles is a process that can add impact to a topic offering the opportunity to challenge what is in essentially an emotive subject. Dion has also collaborated with zoos and catalogued modern artefact’s recovered from the Thames shoreline. Dion also uses irony to maximum effect at his recent show at the Whitechapel gallery he recreated a Victorian Naturalist study complete with wallpaper depicting extinct animal species. There were also a series drawings of damaged and broken trees with tar as the medium. Dion’s work reminds as that the natural world is at the mercy of humans.
Sarah Eisenlohr is a relatively unknown collage artist at the beginning of her career that is using her art to make a statement about current issues. Eisenlohr’s rural American upbringing has inspired a deep rooted love for her local environment and of the natural world. Eisenhohl uses collage to fuse and blend images, using sourced found kitsch and vintage pictures that are seamlessly juxtaposed with an odd surrealist l element. This overlapping process effectively adds impact and allows an abstract bizarre narrative to tell a visceral story. This device also works on another level as it challenges the notion of nostalgia and memories as these stylised magazine images are also unrealistic and promised an impossible dream and life style. So in a sense she is also challenging the ideology of the past and how the media has the capacity to influence how we live our lives. Eisenhohl in common with Dion is using her art practice to comment on how the environment has been exploited by human consumerism both now and in the past. Both Dion and Eisenlohr use irony and subtle humour in their work to powerfully get across their message – an artistic process that lends an extra dimension to their message and also poses questions for the viewing public.
RESOURCES
https://www.miscelanea.info/a143/sarah-eisenlohr?lang=en ( assessed October 2018)
https://www.behance.net/saraheisenlohr
(Assessed October 2018)
http://www.escapeintolife.com/artist-watch/sarah-eisenlohr/ (assessed October 2018)
https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/mark-dion/
(Assessed October 2018)
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dion-tate-thames-dig-t07669/digging-thames-mark-dion (assessed October 2018)
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/mark-dion-2789
(Assessed October 2018)
BOOKS
DION, M (2018) – The theatre of the natural world exhibition catalogue Whitechapel gallery
DION, M (2017) – High line: a field guise and handbook
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