THE LAST ARTIST - @_FA_TH_ER (SA) February 2021

A structure comprised of ad-hoc materials, form fitting to the gallery space, contains a series of paintings depicting a cataclysmic, apocalyptic event occurring within an urban environment. The provenance of this assemblage is unclear. The juxtaposition of the structure, seemingly an emulation of a gallery space, within an actual gallery space evoke a time and place not entirely our own.

Certainly, the gallery and indeed Adelaide (as we peer at the daubs of paint, striving to find recognisable architectural signifiers) itself is no stranger to the themes evoked by this assemblage, utopias, and their ever following shadow, dystopia are cultural mainstays of the art world. Prior propositions have suggested generated disasters and subsequent expedient fabrication be the language of humanist reflection on anxiety around an unknowable future, or perhaps a necessary step in the act of creation and reinvention. Esoteric theory has formed the spine of such endeavours but here, something that has been built from a world with a story has rudely materialised.

Just what are we to make of it?