Ruby Swinney, 2017, Mystery of Faith (Detail), Oil on paper, Approx. 290 x 270 cm

EXHIBITION OPENING
THURSDAY 25 MAY: 18H00 – 20H00
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Ignis Fatuus

Those–dying then,
Knew where they went–
They went to God’s Right Hand–
That Hand is amputated now

And God cannot be found–
The abdication of Belief
Makes the Behavior small–

Better an ignis fatuus–
Than no illume at all–

Poem 1551 by Emily Dickinson (1882)

WHATIFTHEWORLD is pleased to present Ignis Fatuus – a debut solo exhibition by painter and installation artist Ruby Swinney. Swinney’s work explores what it means to live in a vanishing natural world that is growing progressively darker and unfamiliar. Through the blurring of both South African and imaginary landscapes her work evokes a sense of loss of faith in what it means to be human in a time of intolerance, mistrust, violence and environmental uncertainty. Drawing on this uncertainty Swinney creates surreal tableaux in which she revels in the strange and unpredictable moods of the natural world and its ability to both alter and transcend human experience.