I was amazed to see how much Bristol had changed; the cityscape, the skyline and the juxtaposition of the old and the new. It had only been ten years since I was last here, but I was horrified to witness the new facades, the unfamiliar company names, the new fonts and futuristic logos encroaching on the old brick work as though trying to push it aside into the depths of History.
How sad, I thought, how History and Life erodes Time and Memory, like a summer cloud dissipating in the blue sky above. How exciting, I thought, as I have done countless times before, to be given the opportunity to return in 50 years, 100 years, even 200 years and see at first hand contemporary life.
My thoughts turned to that wonderful montage at the conclusion of ‘Gangs of New York’ where we witness the graves of the two main protagonists slowly eroding away as Life surges forward, until at last there is no trace, no memory, no knowledge or thought of these two men, what they stood for, what they said or achieved and how they lived their lives. In the soil, no one would ever know these two souls existed.
Life is harsh, fragile, vacant.
With these thoughts in mind, I began this set of collages. We witness an England of the future, England in 2034 and a date realistically close to a time when my own little life will be done. Daleks, a symbol of scientific advancement and technology wander about an apocalyptic landscape; broken, leaderless and with no sense of programming or purpose. Stuck in the mud, or left out with the rubbish, they scatter about the disused factories and council estates that were once inhabited by Humans.
During my research I stumbled upon other artists visions of an apocalyptic England, but most seem to focus on the Human plight. In mine, Humans have simply gone.
Set against a year that has seen the remake of Godzilla, towering over the Daleks are the livestock, deformed, mutilated, genetically modified, grotesque. But like ‘Ripley’s Number 8’ and grown in a lab, these animals are the result of scientific progress; this is Nature versus Nurture, Mother Earth in her most fundamental natural power reclaiming her own, be it- unnatural.
This vision is dark and brooding, melancholy and nightmarish. However, the works contain a personal touch as I have set the narrative in places that I once knew so well as a child and in my past; Gatley Avenue where I lived at my father’s house and the Kingfisher pub that I walked passed everyday on my way to school - Tolworth Broadway and Tolworth Tower where I held my first job in Fine Fare supermarket – Epsom train station – the old dairy in Alexander Road next to Bridge Road where my mother lived- the parade of shops on the Longmead Road...
Underpinning these collages are as always; The Time Machine, Planet of the Apes, 1984, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. I never leave or stray far away from these huge statements that exhaust so much discourse. On the muddy surface these works reveal an England that I shall live in and that I shall die in, one that I love and hate with a ferocity, yet beneath that thin layer these works scream out of the importance and the fragility of Life and how precious each Life is.
Mark S. Masters