GAIA (/30) - Limited Edition Print

By Gulja Holland

From A Distance Limited Edition Prints

The artwork and title borrow inspiration from scientist James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis in which he famously proposed that all organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a single self-regulating complex system. “I suddenly had a vision of the Earth as a complete chemical reactor- not an inert lump of rock and water and whatnot- buzzing around the sun in space. And that was the Gaia hypothesis. It’s the life that keeps it constant.”

• Measurements: 60 cm x 40 cm
• Printed on high-quality Decor Smooth Art 210gsm
• Available framed and unframed 
• Available colours of the frames: White or Black
  (Kindly specify your preference in the Comments upon Checkout)

About the Collection

Like many millennials, the existential threats of global warming and environmental destruction are issues I worry about and reflect on regularly. The idea for this series came about upon discovering the work of Daniel Beltrá including his iconic photographs of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In the same year, I had also discovered the gloss paintings of Australian abstract artist Dale Frank. He would often speak of his work as scientific experiments in which he established ‘’at least twelve responses and reactions that I have been able to observe and replicate on-demand’’.

While experimenting with industrial paints I observed similar entropic qualities to those Frank spoke of. The use of industrial oil paints throughout the works acts as an allegorical reference to the industrial scars caused by mankind's interference with nature, thus embodying a microcosm of the subject matter that inspired the series.

I wanted to create works that not only represented the human impact on the environment but were in themselves a document of the physical and material forces which influence the world around us. Playing with oil enamel paints and their low viscosity allowed me to mimic the biomorphic patterns of our oceans and lands as they form and un-form, dissolve, harden, wrinkle and crack.