Mona Lisa Carbon (2021) Collages by Pol Attard

Symbolic figure and divinity of nature...

“I prefer to see carbon fixed on a canvas than dispersed in the air”

All of my artistic work and my research on carbonaceous matter are based on the general criticism of the Western system and the idea according to which the astrophysicist Aurélien BARRAU explains that fractal action would make it possible to fight against the Western industrial and systemic monster in order to to save nature and the life it supports.

Nothing original if we separate the theme from the idea, however important the subject may be. However, if the aesthetic rendering is necessary at first glance, it is the technique and the material which must attract the attention (both brilliant and dark, like a diamond which has become black and which the reflection of the light on the surface keeps in place). glow)
This series is therefore above all “conceptual”! by its philosophical dimension. The idea being that the artistic proposition becomes a philosophical proposition about our place in nature. It’s the idea of ​​the work about the work. We all know that art is the vector of developments in societies and civilizations, that it inspires fashions and influences trends.

The carbon presented in its original form and its patterns are the juxtaposition of the idea of ​​“the alliance between art and ecology”. Indeed, this 98% carbonaceous material extracted since the beginnings of the industrial area for its energy supply, is none other than the result of sedimentation 400 million years old! stored in a ground that it should never have left!

Anthracite coal is the result of coalification, a process so long on our scale that it is of course invisible to the eye and forces us to question it. We are in the presence of an extraordinary natural phenomenon, and therefore calls into question the frenetic and deadly theory of time as the metronome of our civilization. Observation becomes the norm and immobility the absolute. From “mobilism to immobility” this work transports us into the moment T and forces the contemplator to humbly review our relationship to space and time, without forgetting our titanic and genocidal impact on nature!

The subject is launched, I therefore denounce through these sedimentary compositions “THE ecological problem”, “THE sixth mass extinction”, “THE first total extermination of all living things on Earth” “THE planned genocide of life and of the beauty of the world”, “THE silencing of the poetry of nature” we can see a form of generalized suicide to feed the greed of consumerism from which no one will emerge victorious.

Of course there remains a note of hope when we think that we exist at a pivotal time and that this period happens to be as tragic as it is exciting in the sense that a new world remains to be invented and that for that, it is necessary, succeed in involving each of us.

So be it, the heart of the message is awareness of being in nature, fundamental humility in the face of it, the abandonment of supremacist feelings, the return to a world that sings like a bird on a branch and whose dominant philosophy would be, immobility, the return to the essential, joy and contemplation, resilience through contentment with the “little” and would thus see the increase in our interior lives and our spiritual elevation engaged

To conclude on a note as poetic as it is philosophical, I would quote Henri BERGSON;
If reality came to directly strike our senses and our consciousness, if we could enter into immediate communication with things and with ourselves, then...! We would all be artists because our soul would vibrate in unison with nature.

PôL ATTARD

Related themes

ArtEcologyMona LisaJocondeCarbon