Ocean
All Stories Originate from the Ocean
This series came into being, during a visit to the oceanside town of Hermanus with my children in September 2019. Over the past 3 decades I have documented the oceanic life of this specific stretch of ocean, and my family’s influence on it, many times over. Watching my children frolic in the waves, I realised that they were oblivious to the pivotal role the oceans play in keeping our planet at a liveable temperature1 (Bloom 2018). Similarly, humanity are mere children playing around in our environment, oblivious to the influence we have on it. It is only by becoming one with the macrocosm, that we will restore balance. The realisation dawned on me that we are living our lives as though we are in a sci-fi novel.
The character of these works is simultaneously whimsical yet threatening. Alien yet familiar. The creative process will follow the same conceptual trajectory as the preceding series; photomontage created from decades of photographs taken at the ocean, photographs of both beloved offspring as well as oceanic creatures, placed in the same environment, in harmony with each other, yet quite alien in appearance.
Working with photographs taken of this oceanic environment over many decades I set about creating an alternate reality. Here the works take on a surrealist even magic realist character. The natural inhabitants of the ocean, morph into alien warships poised to intervene. The only trace of humanity is the human hybrids emerging from the ocean, they inhabit a dual space, they are us / and not us. Childlike figures comprising of Jellyfish flesh, finally the biomimicry denotes man being at one with nature
As with the previous series, these photomontages will be revisited in oil paintings. The objective of the painted works, if to portray a world in harmony, less sombre, more light. A future hoped for.
1https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-11-20-true-oceans-how-warming-waters-create-a-fiery-feedback-loop/
The character of these works is simultaneously whimsical yet threatening. Alien yet familiar. The creative process will follow the same conceptual trajectory as the preceding series; photomontage created from decades of photographs taken at the ocean, photographs of both beloved offspring as well as oceanic creatures, placed in the same environment, in harmony with each other, yet quite alien in appearance.
Working with photographs taken of this oceanic environment over many decades I set about creating an alternate reality. Here the works take on a surrealist even magic realist character. The natural inhabitants of the ocean, morph into alien warships poised to intervene. The only trace of humanity is the human hybrids emerging from the ocean, they inhabit a dual space, they are us / and not us. Childlike figures comprising of Jellyfish flesh, finally the biomimicry denotes man being at one with nature
As with the previous series, these photomontages will be revisited in oil paintings. The objective of the painted works, if to portray a world in harmony, less sombre, more light. A future hoped for.
1https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-11-20-true-oceans-how-warming-waters-create-a-fiery-feedback-loop/
The day the Earth stood still I
The day the Earth stood still II
The Boy with All the Gifts I
The Boy with All the Gifts I
After Earth I
After Earth II
©2021 by Laurette de Jager