THE LOST TRIBE
2011-13, Oil on Linen, 90 x 168cm
Finalist, 2013 The Outback Open Art Prize
Finalist, 2012 The John Villiers Art Prize
Winner, 2012 Celebrity Prize, John Villiers Art Prize
Introduced Species usually refers to flora and fauna that inadvertently ends up in a hitherto pristine environment.
However, rarely does this happen without human interference. With the seemingly insatiable quest for growth, the detritus of the human condition has become scattered across the landscape: everything from foreign plants and animals to such alien species as plastics and manufactured waste.
In this Age of Consumerism, where acquisitiveness and ownership is thought to bring happiness, concepts such as sustainability and restraint are anathema to corporate motivations and market expectations. Every year businesses are required to post ever-increasing profits, irrespective of market or environmental conditions. The frontier mentality that drove world exploration and the great migrations still exists, only now the proponents are resource companies and manufacturers, each seeking the next mother lode.
And as this search relentlessly continues, few question the wisdom of this task and ask of themselves, have we, the human tribe,
become lost?