Juan Ford

At the Peak

2023
oil on linen
150 x 180cm
Courtesy of the artist

Artist bio

Juan Ford's practice explores humanity's fraught relationship with the natural environment, centred around the idea that we treat wilderness as something extant from us. This othering of the natural provides the conceptual basis for work. Ford received a MA by Research in 2001. His many commissions include the Australian War Memorial, the NGV's Melbourne Now 2013/2014, Manifesta 9 (European Biennale) 2012, and more recently for Floating Land Biennale in Noosa, and Romantic Route 3, Taiwan. Ford has exhibited extensively within Australia and internationally, including major group exhibitions in Korea, China, Japan, USA, Taiwan, UK, Italy, Spain,  & New Zealand

Artist statement

'I have hiked for pleasure and research for over 35 years. Recently I made my way to the top of Warkwoolowler, (or Mount Bogong), deep in the Victorian High Country.The image presented is one of items I gathered on the way up, then at the summit. These were bound together, and then placed at the peak in order to temporarily increase the mountain's height. Such an action is a reductio ad absurdum; a recognition that for all our heedless actions and pollution (now found at the remotest corners of the Earth), we are insignificant before vast natural processes.'

@juan_ford_art

This artwork will be on display in the 2023 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize Finalist Exhibition from Saturday 25 November 2023 until Sunday 18 February 2024.

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