Marblesque 13 January 2024

Critical Reflection on the Anthropocene through the Marblesque paintings: IV

Akira ISHIGURO

I paint my works as landscapes, based on the idea to capture the geologic time as a landscape.

They represent an overwhelmingly long time, visualized in strata, and they are landscapes that do not have a vanishing point (a point on the image plane where a straight line passing through the viewpoint and

the two-dimensional perspective projections of parallel lines, intersect), a basic technique in landscape painting.

At the moment, my work consists of two main series, the GRAVITATIONAL FIELD series and the Marblesque series.

 The GRAVITATIONAL FIELD series depicts realistic stone surfaces pointing to geological events and formation that happened in the "Holocene" (approximately 10,000 years ago to the present) and

the preceding times. The realistic representation of the marbles gives a strong materiality to the flat surface.

 When painting marble, it naturally makes one think about how the stone was formed. This led to the idea of abstract paintings with multiple colors, which I named Marblesque. The Marblesque series is in a sense an imaginary rendering of the “Anthropocene,” the future stratum which does not yet scientifically exist.

 The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch including the present day, which focuses on the impact of human activities on the Earth's geology and ecosystems, such as climate change, global warming, loss of biodiversity due to mass extinctions, increase of artificial materials, and changes in deposits due to fossil fuel combustion and nuclear testing.

 Given this, I believe the Marblesque series can find its place as the "marbles of the future." This may also mean that a thin and flake-like surface fragment, observed with a polarizing microscope, could offer a view of the coming "Anthropocene,” as seen through a microscopic world.

 The work of these two series continues to evolve and I am currently working on Painting of Marble where Marblesque is placed on GRAVITATIONAL FIELD and Elevated Marblesque, which incorporates a technique of raising the canvas.

 By combining the above-mentioned concepts of “Holocene” and “Anthropocene” on the canvas, Painting of Marble expresses the transition into the "Great Acceleration" period. Beginning in the Industrial Revolution, this is a period of rapid socioeconomic and global environmental change due to human activities. In other words, it speaks about our world today.

 With Elevated Marblesque, I have attempted to give more materiality to the paintings by literally raising the canvas as a way of expressing the changes we see on Earth, such as elevation, subsidence,

sedimentation, and erosion. I have given it a simple form, like a model, offering a bird's-eye view of the earth.

 Within the phenomenon of rock cycles, a basic concept in geology, I am most intrigued by the formation of metamorphic rocks. Here I envision the rocks containing some of the most common and influencing deposits of the "Anthropocene," such as plastic, would be elevated and exposed on the ground surface or formed as contact metamorphic rocks.

 I hope my work will inspire you to imagine such geological strata of the future.