Eschaton

This work is titled "Eschaton" Because it depicts the Eschaton of our world. The end of time moment where the world shifts from the place that we know into something unknown. The work refers to the concepts of climate change and how we are destroying our world and how in nearly every religion across the globe they all predict the end of the human era where we will be punished for our crimes and the world shall live without humanity for we have destroyed it. And whether these religious stories are true or not does not matter because we are in fact destroying the earth that is giving us the chance to live. This work depicts what will happen if we continue what we are doing and keep destroying our world.

The work was created combining elements from the German Romanticism landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich. "The Cross in the Mountains" was the work i selected to start my own Woodcut. I chose Friedrich not only for his immaculate way of painting but most of all because he was a romanticist and what i want to reflect with my work may at first glance seem like a "all is doomed" sort of situation but that would be telling a lie. In fact as you can see in the work the elements from Friedrich's painting are still slightly visible, however they are turning into new and yet unknown shapes. This is suggesting a new beginning, even though we may not be there to witness it, our planet will go on living in it's own beautiful way. My work visualizes the beauty at the end of a long and dark tunnel that we are creating for the human race. the work visualizes that everything will be fine in the end. The earth will go on living in it's own way. just in a way that we do not understand yet. I think that is beautiful and it is the reason i created this piece.

Lastly i want to mention the creation of the work. The work is a woodcut consisting of 8 different layers. of which 5 have been cut by hand and 3 have been cut by a laser cutting machine. The colors for each layer except the Black where mixed by hand using Cranfield Washable Block printing inks. and the plates where printed on a repurposed contra-press on Arches-BFK rives Paper with a paper size of 76.5 x 57 CM
The work was created combining aspects of "The Cross in the Mountains" by Caspar David Friedrich and using Artificial intelligence to create several 100 different landscapes which where then selected by hand and Photoshoped meticulously to created the final image. this process took over 5 months from start to finish. The laser-cut layers where selected in Photoshop for two selections of Black and one selection of Yellow coloured layers.