This comment was written by John Wong on 14 Apr 2021.

Micro-Landscapes of the Anthropocene

Path 1 of 2: The Anthropocene through art – paintings, poetry, photos, ceramics and sculpture.

Art, in its various forms – visual, literary, performative – plays an important role in ecocriticism. These forms represent different modes of thought expression, which can be at once beautiful as well as dystrophic; gentle persuasion or despotic. They can be as vigorous and urgent as a propagandas, a manisfesto, a summon; or they can be as meditative and empathetic as a love poem, a watercolour, an alpine symphony. Both are capable of evoking ecological thoughts in an individual, or urging politicians and captains of society to perform their ecological duties. The following chapters represents my own learning journey in the Anthropocene. The first is about a painting, a parody of humanism – an anthropocentric unitary self – who tries to look beyond the darkness that entraps him, trying to search meanings in the wider cosmos. 

Chapter 1  

A Painting

The notion of ‘marginal worlds’ and ‘subterranean worlds’ resonates with a sentiment I tried to express in a recent acrylic painting of mine (Man’s vision, 2021).

In Encyclopedia of Caves, Hüppop portrays the subterranean worlds exists in ‘continuous darkness … isolation and restriction in space,’ such as in subterranean caves. On the one hand, they offer a high degree of environmental stability and scarcity of predators – a ‘sanctuary’. But on the other, food is scare due to the lack of light and may be even water (unlike David Abrams’ drenched Balinese caves).

In The Roden Crater, Turrell posits the notion of vision, one that allows his visitors, in a lit-up cave, through a dormant volcanic crater, to look into a clear celestial sky.

In Man’s Vision, modern man still exist in a metaphorical darkness, articulated by the thick black paint that encases him; yet through the blue rectangle, the blueness of which is unchecked, a portal is open, to allow him to see with a relatively clear vision, from the human-centric world he is in, to the margin of the cosmos, to as far as he can see. However, as will be discussed later, this painting connotes humanism – unitarian selfhood and dualistic separations. In the current ecological thinking, this Anthropocentric notion is facing extinction of its own. 


                                           Man's Vision, acrylic on canvas, 2021 (91 x 61 cm)

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