Spangaro, Melody. 2023. 119 CVR. Drawing. M16 Artspace, Canberra, Australia.
Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of Melody Spangaro's 119 CVR, 2023.
This work is by a close friend. The title is a coded reference to the address of the subject of this work, a house destroyed in a bush fire. Decoding this textual code (Chandler 2022, 150) would require specific knowledge, knowledge the artist has chosen not to share for reasons of privacy and also to elevate this work as a symbol of the broader global threat posed by climate change.
I saw this work on 31 August 2023. At nearly 4.5 metres wide, and dominating one end of the long gallery space, it stood out for me from the 11 works on show. The muscular scale of the work and its unflinching gaze on the devastation wrought by fire trigger the latent sense of fear many people have about bushfires, a fear exacerbated by recent fires in Europe and Hawaii.
The work also creates a sense of awe at the skill of the artist to engender a sense of hope, through the play of light and the new growth in the foreground.
This work reminds me of the benefit of conveying an element of hope to engage the viewer in otherwise bleak subjects.
Bibliography:
Chandler, Daniel. 2022. Semiotics : the basics. Fourth edition. ed.The Basics Series. New York, New York: Routledge.
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