Untitled (Design for Jadindagadendar), 2014
pencil, ink, acrylic paint, gouache on paper
254 x 350,5 cm
Since 2004, Charles Avery (1973, United Kingdom) has been working on ‘The Islanders’: his epic project devoted to mapping a fictitious island. Avery charts his imaginary world using all manner of media, developing a history, culture, belief system and society for it. At the heart of the Island lies the city Onomatopoeia. ‘Untitled (Tree No. 1 for the Jadingadendar)’, ripe with wax fruit hanging from its steel branches, is taken from Onomatopoeia’s municipal garden Jadingadendar in which the plants are all dead, the inhabitants of the Island having refuted nature. Alien yet strangely familiar, the world of ‘The Islanders’ is not utopian and functions as a mirror for our own society.