Sharon Singer: Tales of the Anthropocene

Tales of the Anthropocene: Nightmares of a Better Tomorrow
21 May – 19 June 2021
Opening Reception: 21 May, 5-7 pm
RDS Gallery, 6 Castle Street, Dunedin

In ‘Tales of the Anthropocene: Nightmares of a Better Tomorrow’, 21 May – 19 June 2021, RDS Gallery, Sharon Singer, Dunedin painter and visual artist, presents the viewer with a series of pictorial narratives that are, in the words of Jack Zipes, ‘puzzling, startling, and insightful’. The exhibition includes a set of nine paintings, many based on earlier sources that are remodelled and transformed – a painting by Belgian artist James Ensor (1860-1949) in 'Skeletons Fighting Over a Shark Fin' (2020, acrylic and oil on canvas, 508 x 762 mm), a photograph from NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC in ‘Society for Charmers, Charms, and Charming’ (2021, acrylic and oil on canvas, 762 x 762 mm). According to the artist, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, in particular, has provided a motherlode of inspiration, alongside ‘postcards’, ‘photo albums, colonial glacier paintings, and topographical surveys’. Singer displaces, condenses, and reworks these images to provide a mordant critique of contemporary humanity. In Zipes’s view, ‘[w]hat is wondrous about Sharon’s art is her sense of the absurdity of life in the Anthropocene and all the contradictions’, while Federico Freschi notes how in Singer’s imagination ‘the normal becomes strange and sinister’. From another vantage point, Bridie Lonie underlines ‘Singer’s rich mixed media palette and her deft characterisations’, which ‘bring the simplistic aspirations of the past to its present unstable complexity’ – while Joanna Osborne emphasises how Singer’s ‘constellation of ideas’ reiterates ‘again and again’ the dire state of ‘the human and planetary condition’.

Curated by Bridie Lonie, this exhibition gathers together a group of works testifying to the singular vision that this artist brings to her depiction of the contemporary world, one that is familiar, yet arresting – a perspective that resonates with the sense of dismay, anxiety, and even terror, inspired by the current global predicament among an increasingly large number of people (especially the younger generations) today.

Bio
Sharon Singer, a Dunedin-based visual artist, holds an MFA (2008) from the Dunedin School of Art. Her work has attracted wide-spread attention, and has been included in solo exhibitions, group exhibitions and award exhibitions across the country, such as NZ Portrait Award (finalist, 2000), Waikato National Art Award (Merit, 2001), Norsewear Art Awards (winner, 2002), and Wallace Art Award (finalist, 2003). Her work is held in private and public collections in New Zealand and internationally. Fairy tales and myth have provided the subjects for her paintings since 2000, and her paintings have been reproduced in an array of outlets, including LANDFALL 237 (Autumn 2019): 48-56, and FAIRY TALES AND THE ART OF SUBVERSION (Jack Zipes, 2006, second edition, cover image).

Image: SHARON SINGER, 'Bird Song', 2020, acrylic and oil on canvas, 609mm x 914mm.