Chris Fontana

 Brown Gold, 2017

Size:148cm (w) x 146cm (h)

Medium: mixed media on 29 panels of Japanese rice paper

As I worked on Brown Gold I was struck by how much the nature of story changes with the flow of time and human activity. This work began as a visual exploration of the history of coal mining, and the largely overlooked impact it has on local communities. But as environmental crisis projections escalate due to climate change, historical stories of domestic politics, racial history, pollution and conservation are now dwarfed by the more serious global implications of a single industry. As our world-view evolves, what was simple has become complicated; what once affected isolated communities now affects everybody, everywhere. Historical material becomes philosophically loaded, enabling a local history to tell a global story.

Again using the medieval mapamundi form for its emphasis on the relationship between landscape and story, I create works on paper that incorporate imagery and text to explore a current narrative world-view based on archival media history.