"The phrase 'call of the void' refers to the strange sensation when you’re at a great height and gravity seems to begin pulling you at an oblique angle towards the edge, despite having no suicidal intentions. In this show, I was interested in exploring the strained relationship between the modern world we’ve created and its animal inhabitants, at a time where we seem to be at the edge of an ecological tipping point. I wanted to make paintings of dystopian dreamscapes, with people interacting with strange, reconstructed forms of nature."
"I’ve always loved technology, futurism and the world we’ve created for ourselves, but it’s hard not to be horrified by the impact our way of life is having on the planet," Francis adds. "Even nominally wild animals now exist within the boundaries of a human-constructed world they didn’t evolve for. Turning back the clock seems impossible, so the only real hope appears to be relying on technological solutions to our problems, but even if that’s in some way successful it feels like the result will be a strange and different world. I was drawn to the idea of creating images of constructed animals by layering together different elements, including skeletons, polygonal structures, empty outlines and garish colours. I wanted to create a sense of facsimile, an idea of a beautiful natural thing that has been lost and replaced with something with a similar form, but distinctly different."
I am reminded of the opening credits of the newest version of "Westworld"on HBO in which we see bison and horses being bio-created in a lab. And I also can't help but flash on a scene from the classic sci-fi film "Blade Runner" where Harrison Ford sees an owl fly in the penthouse apartment of Tyrell. Sean Young comes in and asks him if he likes the owl to which he asks, "Is it artificial?" Her curt answer: "Of course it is."
Exactly how much are we going to lose from climate catastrophe? How many animal species, how many plants species, how many eco systems, how much land, how many humans? These are the questions I ask myself daily, but I still have to make breakfast, I still have to feed my cats, I still have to live here and now. It is creating a cognitive schism for many of us to live with this specter while trying to maintain the momentum necessary for daily life.
Top to bottom: A Crowd Tries To Determine If A Shark Is Real And/Or A Threat; A Girl Waits For A Field Of Tigers To Wake Up; A Group Of People Try To Communicate With A New Artificial Whale; At The Beach, People Try To Get Closer To The Birds; Baobab Tree Collapse; Bird Toys/Predator; Cavalry Advance; Far Into The Desert Two People Encounter The Construction Of A Mammoth; Highway Emergency Telephone Couple; Mechanical Buffalo Journey; Synchronised Ritual Bear Construction
https://www.ifrancis.co.uk/
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