Artworks

Artist Notes

Installation

Visions of exploration are so intriguing, not only because they reveal stories of the past, but they encapsulate a fantasy of adventure. The further away in time we drift, the more rare the stories become and the less possible verification becomes.

Interpretations of historic events are told thru the position of the author, who naturally center themselves and perspectives. Their version becomes the authority of the event, making single individuals accountable for the telling of entire slices in history. In “New World” exploration, survived logbook entries and letters sent back to Kings, are the main resources we have to decipher expeditions. These were written by Captains and Naturalists onboard the ships. This means that much of the history of the world has a European perspective, and gives all the power to the author or artist relaying their story

An example of this is the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, famously known as the Explorer who discovered common-day Mexico, responsible for invading and ultimately imperializing the country. In 1511, when he left the island of Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), he was not given permission from the local Governor. So when he discovered the shores of Mesoamerica, and began expedition inland, he essentially went over the Governor’s head. When he sent letters to Spanish Emperor Charles V, the letters help to justify his disobedience, he described New Spain with grandeur: wonderful palaces and temples, comparing them to Granada. He wrote of his interactions with the Aztec people (characterizing them as having a pagan worshipping culture), the details of their battles, and the eventual events that lead to the destruction of the city of Tenochtitlan. He had studied as a Solistitor and was aware of the law, which is important to identity when reading his accounts, as he clearly rendered himself as the protagonist on a mission to serve his country. These four letters (one was lost) would eventually circulate Europe, spreading his stories and writing history.

Alternatively, Montezuma II, the Tenochtitlán Aztec Emperor was killed during the conquest, along with much of his Empire, and thus unable to inject his interpretation of events into history. Less often or not, written accounts of the native inhabitants and European interactions are never given a local perspective. An Aztec version of events only exists because decades later, after time and through a faded memory, stories were passed down in families and eventually dictated onto paper in their native language.

Perhaps the easiest way of describing something on the onset of discovery is to describe it in terms that are familiar; to compare it to something you know. Naturalists were tasked with creating scientific drawings and remarking on the new species of plants and animals. A practical way to describe anything “new” is to observe the differences and the ways it contrasts with your familiarly. You could conceivably extend this practice to foreign cultures and people.

In fact, this is common in historical paintings. Notably, French Romanticism painters Delacroix and Gerome painted “everyday scenes” of foreign lands in Northern Africa. Their depictions ultimately highlighted the ways that these countries were different from their own — creating “otherness” and portraying violence and exoticism. These paintings served as visual recordings of foreign lands, creating the fantasy known as ‘the Orient’. Their work creates a narrative of oppressed people, with traditional practices, living in the past. In Jerome’s work, even the composition choices mimic a lit stage, where the characters are playing a part for the European spectators. There is a power structure in which the Artist is fully controlling the vignette. Using the stage of another country, it wouldn’t be a far stretch to suggest that the Explorers romanticized foreign attributes in order to satisfy their fantasies and fulfil their desires, to perpetuate a narrative of adventure and danger.

Historically, naval expeditions were designed for a few key reasons: to find new passages and sea routes, to locate and exploit new resources (such as spice, gold, fish), and to gain colonial expansion and overseas wealth. Along the way, stories were told and maps were followed and created. Explorers used mapping to define space and time and to record observations. Their maps became the official record on the “New World”. However, hand-drawn reports by passing sailors, were sometimes unverified, mistaken, or sometimes deliberately fabricated. Historical maps are often proven nonsensical today.

Some famous accounts of misadventure include a the “discovery” of entire islands that later would proven to not exist. Maps of “phantom islands” are dotted throughout history. In more recent history of 1906, Arctic Explorer Robert E. Peary claimed to have sighted an entire landmass. He called it Crocker Land, named after his financial backer George Crocker, who would go on to fund another expedition a few years later. A discovery of a new land, despite being unable to challenge its existence, must have yielded a determinate level of praise and respect, not to mention additional funding. It was later uncovered that Crocker Land had been fraudulently invented by Peary, after his original expedition goal of reaching the North Pole had failed.

This exhibition features fantastical map-like artworks that harness the spirit of exploration. This collection of black (sum of all colour) ink and graphite drawings is a continuation of my research into abstracted marks, referencing the sensory landscapes of my surroundings and challenging the possibilities of what a map can be. These drawings are my visual interpretations and subjective observations of sound and motion perceived in daily life and transposed onto the paper surface as a flurry of movement and pathways. They do not claim to be eternally true, but rather a fleeting description of perception, viewed through an unreliable narrator, recorded with imperfect hands. The map cannot be followed because what it has captured has already changed.

The drawings are accompanied by curious wall sculptures, anonymously tethered to sea life, outer space, and other unspecified flora and fauna from the depths of the unknown. These mixed-media figures are my own sort of Naturalist investigation into the unmapped abyss of my own imagination.