The path towards nature in the paintings of Sylvia Popova passes through the gathering and reworking of various digital sources; technologies that capture the earth’s surface through their pixelated gaze. Her landscapes emerge from nature but are filtered through appropriated, algorithmic images. They are taken from Google Earth and other found images that use 3D scanning and aerial technologies. “By using images generated by satellites and drones, I draw attention to a conflict I hope will provoke deeper reflection: the wild, the organic, the chaotic, the untamed – set against the artificial, the human-made, the orderly, the protected.”
Yet beyond this apparent binary lies a subtler idea: data does not automatically equal truth. The technological prostheses that allow us to see at micro and macro levels are often assumed to be neutral, objective tools, but their use must always be weighed against the ethics and subjectivity of the viewer. Nature, seen through the lens of technology, presents us with a complex ethical dilemma. What rights do we have to these images, and why are we so quick to accept the manipulation of the digital image over direct reality?
Popova’s use of painting in the exhibition space introduces yet another layer of meaning. Laid out across the gallery floor, sprawling across the ground, the large linoleum surfaces resemble discarded snakeskins shed among stones. The connection between snake and earth is as old as myth. In many traditions, the snake symbolises the chthonic, the untamed forces of nature, chaos itself. In countless myths, snakes (or dragons, serpents) do battle with deities who represent cosmic order. But the snake is rarely a mere enemy – more often, it is also a guardian, a healer, a bearer of knowledge and fortune.
These ‘skins’ have absorbed the terrain they have traversed. They may be read as animal forms, as conscious beings with will and agency – or as lifeless remnants of something once significant, now used up and cast aside, like a snake’s old skin.
This exhibition is organised in partnership with Credo Bonum Gallery.
