‘Humans. They get everywhere. We think we are going places but actually it is the substance of our journeys, within which we spend so much of our lives, that have created the most indelible monuments to our existence. This exhibition explores what I call the anatomy of haste. I am inspired by the ingenious and the ubiquitous acts of engineering amidst the seas, mountains and the envelope of air: concrete, asphalt, steel, glass and plastic, the stuff which humans have constructed, to my mind, in the image of their own bodies: that which carries our movement and migration across planet Earth. Thus our body parts and our complex bodily functions become both poetic metaphor and handy travel guide around this collection of paintings, drawings and prints. At the turn of the last century, a new geological epoch was tentatively proposed as the Anthropocene Age. Its naming referred to the first period of geological time shaped by a single species. These new works plot that species’ random journeying but also, hopefully, find new expression for the infrastructure of human movement, reflecting that constant paradox − both a fascination with, and deep concern for, our extravagant swarming of this planet.’
Kate Downie
