Extinction Point

The exhibition looks at rarity in both natural and constructed systems. In nature, rarity can occur through chance, evolution and geological events; in culture, rarity is often manufactured through systems of value, scarcity and desire. Trading cards become one point of reference, particularly their elaborate systems of classification and rarity. This logic extends into ceramic objects and iconography, where the emphasis shifts towards the genesis of a new object: its making, materiality, colour and form, and the desire these qualities produce. Extinction is perhaps the ultimate rare event. An animal can only become extinct once; a volcano can only cease to exist as an active force once. Volcanic activity itself has also played a role in the extinction of species. The circle recurs throughout the work as a metaphor for the point: a mark, an event, a beginning or an ending. The first chapter of the metal works draws on other singular moments of cultural history: the Moon landing, the first full-length animated film, and the emergence of the first trading cards. These are first events, points in time that cannot be repeated. Horror and extinction sit alongside one another, but their visual languages are deliberately at odds. The neon works borrow from the visual vocabulary of animation and entertainment, using familiar symbols and colour to mask something darker: the possibility of disappearance, destruction and the end of things. Extinction Point is ultimately concerned with the value we assign to things that can happen only once. Whether naturally, culturally, or through their deliberate creation.