The Ultimate Landscape
Globetrotting tourists consume natural beauty with the use of electronic devices; I am one of them. With my work, I investigate the notions of the exotic, pristine and unspoiled land and of the tourist gaze. I spy on the spectacle of looking for the “ultimate amazing” to be uploaded and shared.
What is the draw of the remote and the exotic, why the hope that we are the first to discover, uniquely positioned for an encounter? Why do we crave nature in the age of Anthropocene? Is this a subconscious attempt to catch a glimpse of what will soon be gone? We seem to look for a high-touch experience but through a high-tech lens.
We expect nature to deliver a sense of enchantment, of a total dissolution, to reconnect us with forces larger than us. But the traveller changes the travelled land. We arrive with expectations and project desired imagery onto places we visit.
My work draws from the historic paintings of the Sublime, from the work created by the traveller artists and the exoticizing visions of the tropics. I depict landscapes with small figures of present day explorers; I paint not what they see, but what potentially might be there, perhaps outside of the frame of their viewfinders, an ultimate experience that awaits just around the corner.
Maja Godlewska