The carbon footprint of TATT (the Art Top Table) has emerged as a significant contributor r
to all art media, especially concerning the medium of painting since the 1980s. Or not? Or is it TATT from the 1980s, the precursor to art policy by the nascent social academic media in a concerted way, where central luminary figures delivered misguided policymaking without accountability.
Does the low carbon footprint remind more tech Art giants of their responsibilities? Maybe not today but perhaps more tomorrow? But there are some who would do anything to prevent Art and politics deciding how Art media expresses itself - they are nothing but reactionaries fighting against moderation, and have actually given ideologues ammunition to infect and deepen hostility and conflict, which is the very opposite of their intentions, or is/was it?
But Art and Painting in particular visualises the potential creative visualisation of the future, and by the human desire and destiny of the need for exploration (wanderlust) that will take us beyond the human territorial limitation of 'form' and our physical boundaries too etc.. Perhaps it has been modernism and Surrealism in particular (of the early to mid-20th century) that offered us our future, as I believe today is a 21st century version of it that will tackle head-on all that we aspire to do and all that we have to use as conduits to envisage it. Painters also are the Alpha (ancient cave Painting) to Omega (the last stage of Painting here ) that will develop Painting and its rudimentary materials on and from a distant planet other than our terrestrial home. We may be both a microscope and telescope but will be able to show time and culture slow down, speed it up as well as reverse it, and that belongs to all the manifestations of Painting throughout its ancient past to an unprecedented future without any technical intervention. We have range and diversity in both subject matter and by the society wide narratives and demographics of an increasing number of Painter practitioners in the UK.. Time to explore!
Painting inhabits the same world as the human diaspora that our 'portholes of paint provide. We may have migrated to anything other than Painting in general because of TATT, but Painting is more than just a migration, we have become an explorative diaspora and not just a Trojan Horse to be let out from the vaults of Painter denial. This is especially true of the many diasporas in the UK, but especially relevant to the African, European, Asian, middle-Eastern and Celtic multiple generations that make-up a majority that is underrepresented in Art today.
Where there is light there will be Painting, where there is Painting there will be light, and we are drawn to light-up both. But as we'll leave our solar system and say goodbye to our once terrestrial home, we will have to discover how light, that we've come to depend on on Earth, works elsewhere. Evacuation from Earth may demand Art commentary, but Painting from rock and soil of another planet will be amazing ! But is it really the last stage or the next stage in Painting, or both at once ? Well we are underdogs who require as part of our human DNA a frontier spirit as well as a need to advance a community spirit (for example of Practitioners of Paint ) . Indeed the oldest form of envisaging societal togetherness given visual dimensionality is by Human Cave art Painting, may have also Painted our future beyond Earth.!!? Here is nature and nurture inseparable by constituent parts of its materials and its social function and of course, us. Painting is the bonding experience of nature and nurture !! Yes we have evolved since volcanic and glacial deposits on Earth to restore our wunderlust into the stars, acknowledging that our science today can not account for this apparent reconnection to early cave drawing of 'visitors' globally reminding us of our future or a warning of what has happened in the past ??!!
Have we humans evolved how to distinguish between fear and a credible threat ? Or have we tried to consign these to visual references to be euphemised or brutalised since Renaissance Paintings to today ? And here is where we discover whether Art is Mask or Gargoyle, where Christian Art's depiction of the Christ on the Cross is often a horror show of human agony inflicted on Christ by us, or, in complete contrast, idyllic versions of paradise ensconced in a pastoral scene located near Rome, where moral humanity sits next to the Colosseum, where Christians were once fed to the lions, and where The Vatican resides. Perhaps Painting encompasses more moral dilemmas and too much of the human condition for a secular tech world today ? Perhaps tech and conceptual Art is hiding from the conflict of all man's depravity, where Painting still remains committed.!? I can only envisage Painting inheriting more anger and agony in the present and our future, but if unmolested, it will not back-out of visual confrontationalism even if it still has to compete with beauty debased by human ugliness and brutality. But social media today seems to be more au fait with hate criminality, but it's fake news and deliberate misquoting and is our bete noir to society that many Painters today especially find alien to their process.
For Painters today, their truth, their verisimilitude isn't realist Art but veracity and clarity which may be 'Un Realist Art', with varying levels of abstraction according to the Painters treatment of validating the Painting. Indeed, human imperfection separates us from the AI or Machine Art; Our very human foibles and sins and failings make our Art Painting accountable and validated by its unique individuality, it is where we get ownership and agency to explore our humanity and celebrate our mortality and moral conflicts and not just to depict agony or beauty.; this is where we self-validate and acquire authenticity by our human imperfection !!!
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