Rose Mary Sloot

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Much of my work deals with Evolution, of the universe, the planet and humankind from a scientific and religious point of view. I use personal iconography to investigate the interrrelation and separateness, the similarities and disparities of the natural environment and aspects of humaneness, and the gradual, inevitable evolution of both.

In addressing these concerns multi-canvas, layered images and paintinggs paired with boxes create a dialetic between images of the earth's surface and representations of humanity both painted and real. Vague suggestions of landscape or specific locations, the scrutiny of geologic detail and ephemeral images of human kind from Lucy or Denkenesh ( believed once to be the oldest known hominid) to shadows of my husband and myself are employed. This placement of a suggested figure in the landscape comments on the temporality of a life, as well as our place on and relaionship to the geographic location we inhabit.

Shadows are employed as an archetypal image that keeps the notion of human as all inclusive as possible giving the work a wide resonance. Shadows are nothing more than a temporary condition of light, which comments appropriately on the brevity of human time. In some cases they are so cropped or obscured, the viewer may not recognize them immediately as human shadows; yet for me personally, they are so recognizable that they are portraits, which is due, in part, to the fact that the brain recognizes your shadow as though it were part of your body.

Light and water occur in all the images from The Idea Of Evolution works. Water is "the place we've come from, whether by way of biology or immigration". Water combined with Light creates a "spiritual condition". "Both are metaphors for transformation, representing the transitional and the transitory."

In a pair of canvases titled Rock Face and My Face the red panel is a detail of an ancient monolith, Ayers Rock, occuring in the southern hemisphere on opposite points of the planet from the green image created on Manitoulin Island. The hot, red rock face depicts a detail of the scars that resemble a human head known as "the brain". Beyond the obvious similarities of a human head implied in each canvas the significance of the image lies in the fact that it represents a geologic location experienced years ago - the passage of human time, and the geologic age of the rock; its sacredness to the aboriginal people; its absolute oppositeness to the cool green liquid shadow of a human face on shallow water on a lake on an island on a lake in the northern hemisphere.

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