With every breath we take, we increase the world's carbon dioxide levels. This exhibition of new work by Mike Singe attempts to identify how climate change influences the way we think about our engagement with the world.
The uniquely global characteristic of this environmental challenge ensures that we are all inescapably complicit in its creation through our daily actions.
Inspired by the portable resuscitation chambers used to revive canaries in coal mines, Half Empty / Half Full bestows common objects, such as balloons and air fresheners, with the ability to act as life preservers or slow executioners for the canaries, depending on the viewer's glass half empty / glass half full disposition.
The Twenty Twenty Vision series attempts an alternative way of visualising the commitment of individual nations to reducing carbon emissions. These drawings are made via a process that facetiously parodies the casual usage of the terms carbon capture and carbon reduction. Step one in the drawing process is to capture the carbon emitted from a burning candle and making the drawing surface completely black with soot (impure carbon). Step two, carbon reduction, is achieved by removing soot from the drawing surface to create botanical representations of selected national trees. The surface area of carbon removal is dependent on the nation's 2020 carbon reduction target. For example the image of Australia's Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha) takes up only 5% of the total surface area of the drawing, matching Australia's commitment of a 5% reduction on 2000 levels. Beyond a mere pastiche of climate change related processes these drawings question, through the use of national symbols, notions of national identity and its relationship to a country's commitment to a sustainable existence.
Mike Singe studied at Curtin University, graduating in 1990, and went on to receive a Master of Fine Art in 2011 from the University of Tasmania, where he now resides. His artworks can be found in several important collections including; the Art Gallery of WA, Kerry Stokes, Murdoch University, Bankwest, Holmes a Court, Royal Perth Hospital, City of Joondalup, Curtin University, King Edward Memorial Hospital and several private collections.
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