Fly Me to the Moon (2016)

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Title: 'Fly me to the moon'
Year: 2016
Medium: Acrylic, paper, glitter, cotton thread and ink on canvas
Measurements: 21cm x 29.7cm

The artwork takes inspiration from the infamous environmental impact of humans, their lack of responsibility replaced by consumerism, and Leonardo DiCaprio's eloquent speech to the United Nations Committee back in 2014 to raise awareness about climate change and the devastation to come.
Start by noting the standing seal in the background welcoming the new year as the ephemeral sign one step closer to the end, exploiting an unstable and unsustainable order with man and nature on opposite sides of the board on the brink whether to flee or fight for this pending terrestrial genocide.

One of the forefront issues of today is climate change. Rooted in deforestation, various forms of pollution, mineral and fossil profiteering, the search for maximised energy sources ergo fracking, coal factories and mining, radio towers lifting the ionosphere, negligent nuclear disasters poisoning water sources, hydrogen bomb subterranean testing, as well as redefining status of national parks and rainforests have spat into the distant foretellings to drag doomsday to our stoep and subsequently causing mass extinctions, extreme droughts, increasing greenhouse effects, the melting of the icecaps, incremented seismic activity, tectonic displacements, typhoons and rising sea levels.

It is a known fact that climate change is a natural and episodic occurrence which is regularly in play, however we must acknowledge that our intelligence, discoveries and involvement as a dominant species has catastrophically sped up, upturned and amplified the natural chronological course of events as well as its scale.

Like a swelling hurricane, the disregard for climate change and its effects are perceived by various state leaders and a large percentage of the general population as synonym of mythic and apocalyptic derangement. Thus the quote in the painting extracted from the actor's statement to the UN "None of this is rhetoric and none of it is hysteria. It is fact", pictorially discusses and displays within the composition the effects of mankind's disbelief through heavenly fresh water fish.

The salmon, very common in contemporary times is however in a cascading rapid decline due to overfishing with two main salmon species nearing extinction. Deforestation along with raising sea levels decades ahead of scientific projections have ignorantly relocated and/or exterminated salmon breeding grounds for two subspecies, displacing river mouths and deltas, and therefore affecting reproductive cycles. Similar to magic realism, every drop or rising degree makes radical extinction predictions now plausible and almost surreal, hence the angelic halo and wings.

This scepticism along with recent conglomerate of filmographies promoting space odysseys all link into man's fixation with space exploration to conquer other planets and start anew. Through technology concurrently locking away its power to adapt and learn and happy with easy conformance provided by companies who view the planet as a liquidation stock that once depleted will be abandoned. After pulling out the plug of the world, the privileged few will leave to sail onto pristine virgin alien planets with old fools eyes while the general population blindly forgets, struggles to survive and squabbles over depleted stock, a cosmical crime scene.