What does it mean to make art in the age of the Anthropocene? Bartley Gallery's current showing of the works of Conor Clarke, Anne Noble and Deborah Rundle aim to explore this question.
The Anthropocene is posited as the age of climate change, depleting resources, and mass species extinction. Increasing populism, authoritarianism, and ethnic tribalism denote its current stage on this earth. These concepts are not disconnected. The way we treat the world, and the way we treat each other, are intimately linked.
The work of the three artists in this exhibition questions and explores dominant paradigms that have contributed to the state of the world today. Through each artist's expression, whether it be photography, scans, sculpture or neon, each asks us to reassess fundamental distinctions or separations between entrenched notions of science, nature, labour, and culture that have come to define the human age.