AOTEROA ART FAIR
VANITAS - PORTRAIT AS LANDSCAPE 2021 @ Mothermother Iteration 10 Portraits
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VANITAS - PORTRAIT AS LANDSCAPE – continues to explore value systems in times of late capitalism. Echoing into the timeless, but referencing the tradition of Vanitas paintings of 17th Century Europe. Subverting the glory of traditional art categories, Vanitas were established as symbolic works of transience of life, futility of pleasure and the certainty of death. These works, often juxtaposing symbols of wealth with those of ephemerality.
Human skulls. Composting fruit and flowers. Bubbles. Smoke. Music. Fire. Time.
Revisited in contemporary times, by artists from Jana Sterbak to Damien Hirst, Vanitas meaning vanity, emptiness, futility or worthlessness in Latin. The Biblical view was that earthly goods and pursuits are transient and worthless. "Vanity of vanities. All is vanity." Ecclesiastes 1:2 succinctly describes the Vanitas movement that began in response to the imperial prosperity in 17th century Holland, These works created to remind us that our vanity or material possessions and pursuits do not preclude us from death, response – ability or earth’s transitory laws.