GALVIN HARRISON + T.N.G. PROJECTS
The People Who Came From The Sea
Wood / Glass / Stone / Clay / Wax
And in the distance
at the edge of the mirage
we still watch, every evening
the sun fall into the sea
Mohammed Ebnu
Desperate times calls for desperate measures. This new series of sculptures are firmly rooted in the speculation of the past, the present and the future. At this point of civilization's existence we are finally beginning to enter the sphere of recognition and admission that whatever the shape or form of the gods we have made up, none of them existed in anything other than an abstracted form of unrealistic existence. We have committed personal fraud. We have for generation after generation passed the poisoned chalice onto our children in order to affirm and justify our own spiritual shortcomings. I am and always have been an enthusiastic supporter of protestation. I want positive discourse over a dulling illusional harmony. I view discourse as mankind in a positive cycle of growth and development. This series of sculptures are an introspective view of us as mortal man. The visual order of my thoughts and speculations has created a manifest and project that is imbued with a pragmatic order and visual logic. It is an order of three phases; That we evolved from the sea. That we existed, multiplied and developed on dry land until we had exhausted and destroyed the resources of the planet. A planet that we then abandoned and departed. Or as we with optimistic grace would wish, we saved the planet but travelled beyond the solar system as part and parcel of the pre-ordained factor of our evolutionary progress. The vocation of a sculptor is one of accepting a visual challenge, of speculating, submerged in the mire of a nonsensical arena of thoughts, facts and ideas in order to create a resonating pragmatic visual form of abstracted translation. A translation of which has the ambition to reach beyond the retina of just looking. To surpass merely the stage of seeing and arrive at the possibility of forming an uncoded relationship based upon the principle of something instinctively recognised. Something about ourselves, that is not determined by `the gods´ but rather a submissive embrace of our own diminutive reality. A reality that really is prepared to struggle with, where we came from, what we doing now and where we are going.
Galvin Harrison, Copenhagen 2017.
A note of sincere gratitude from Galvin Harrison + T.N.G. Projects for the wonderful
assistance and support from the photographers, Kevin Broadbery and Jesper Helbo.