Ranna.com
Thank you for visiting my "Hot Spots"
gallery. Through these art works, I hope to share with you a
glimpse of the extraordinary, ethereal beauty of the desert
lands of Mesopotamia, Central Australia, and the American South
West, and through that glimpse to provide a moment of reflective
pause about events on the ground. (Dr
Ranna-Lesley Lachlan. PhD Creative Arts.)
The Hot Spots collection was Ranna's
response to the Iraq war (II). The
momentum towards the Iraq war was inconceivable and incomprehensible
to Ranna's artist mind and sensibilities. Although Ranna marched
with thousands in Washington D.C. (and was aggressively challenged
by friends in Australia for living in America at such a time),
subsequently it was through art that she was able to shift her
reaction into a more universal statement, something more enduring,
a response that revealed for all to see the beauty of the lands
involved.
In
the Table below, C = mixed media on canvas; P = mixed media
on paper.
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IMAGES
with gray borders are CLICKABLE LINKS to ENLARGEMENTS, some
with "shimmer" views.
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ARTIST'S STATEMENT
Copyright
notice |
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Hot
Spot(s) (15) - Mesopotamia, , 152cm x 122cm/ 60" x 48".
Dust Storm Over Gulf region. (C). © Ranna®.
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Hot Spot(s)
(12) - Mesopotamia
65cm x 91cm/ 26.5" x 36" (C) © Ranna®.
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Hot Spot(s)
(13) - Mesopotamia: Smoke trails from Oil Fires after
Bombing,
91cm x 65cm / 36" x 26.5" (C) © Ranna®.
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Hot Spot(s)
(14) - Desert Lion, Desert Lamb, Mesopotamia,
91cm x 65cm / 36" x 26.5" (C) © Ranna®.
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There
are so many connotations to the
term Hots spots... In these artworks, Ranna
employed multiple layers of double entendre. One meaning took
its cue from satellite
imagery informing this series: The red spots in
all the paintings (click the thumbnails for Enlargements)
are an artefact of the satellite imagery. They connote actual
"hot spots" where the heat from oil fires, bombing
fires, or wild fires on Earth's surface is so intense that
it shows up as red marks on the satellite image - Hot Spots.
The first
image illustrated above left includes the amazing shape of
the immense sandstorm that blew through the entire Gulf region
at the beginning of the Iraq war, as though even Nature was
trying to prevent what had been launched. (Click the thumbnail
to go to a larger image to see the shape more clearly.) It
was uncanny that at the time that the first waves of bombing
were vollied at Iraq, there were also huge fires in Australia's
deserts and in the American South West, and multiple fires
in Texas, former U.S. president George W. Bush's home state.
Viewed from afar, even those fires' hot spots and even the
smoke trails of oil fires after bombing (Hot Spots 13) hold
an eerie, ethereal quality...
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Hot Spot (16)
-The American South West,
66cm x 38cm / 26" x 15" (C) © Ranna®.
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Hot
Spot(s) (17) - The American South West, 65cm x 91cm/ 26.5"
x 36" (C). © Ranna®. View includes former nuclear
testing area in Nevada.
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Hot
Spot(s) (18) - Central Australia, 66cm x 38cm
/ 26" x 15" (C). © Ranna®. Near Maralinga.
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Hot
Spot (19) - Central Australia - Maralinga, 91cm x 65cm
/ 36" x 26.5" (C). © Ranna®. NOTE: Maralinga is a
location within the Woomera area of Central Australia where
the British undertook above ground nucelar testing between
1955 - 1963.
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The
premise for Hot Spots was simple: Viewed from satellite
height, the protagonists' areas of the world are so extraordinarily
beautiful. Yet the beauty belied events on the ground. At ground
level, these environments are harsh and people were dying, being
killed. The Earth was being contaminated. At ground level, three
countries whose fates are now inextricably linked through their
participation in this war, whether as defender or aggressor
- Mesopotamia, Australia, and America - all share desert lands
within their borders, and incredible heat, fires, and nuclear
contamination within those deserts.
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Hot
Spot (20) - Central Australia, Dust storm towards Lake
Eyre, 78cm x 91cm / 31" x 36" (C). © Ranna®. View
includes the Maralinga nuclear testing area.
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Hot
Spot(s) (21) - The American South West, 152cm x 122cm/
60" x 48" (C). © Ranna®. View includes former nuclear
testing area in Nevada.
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Hot
Spot(s) (22) - Central Australia, 152cm x 122cm/ 60" x
48" (C) © Ranna®.
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Hot
Spot(s) (8) - Mesopotamia, 60cm x 45cm / 24" x
18" (P) © Ranna®.
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HOT SPOTS
Bush fires
Wild fires
Wars
Nuclear contaminated zones
Nuclear test sites
The latest "in" night club
The latest "in" travel destination
Hot places
DESERTS...
Regardless of what humans do to each other - and Earth - down
on the ground, viewed from 1 kilometre above, our world is
strangely serene and unimaginably beautiful. (© Ranna®.)
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Hot
Spot(s) (9) (Mesopotamia),
60cm x 45cm / 24" x 18" (P) © Ranna®.
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Hot
Spot(s) (10) (Mesopotamia),
45cm x 60cm / 18" x 24" (P) © Ranna®.
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Hot
Spot(s) (11) (Mesopotamia), 60cm x 45cm / 24" x 18" (P)
© Ranna®.
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Hot
Spot(s) (3) - (Mesopotamia),
30cm x 26cm / 15" x 11" (P) © Ranna®.
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Hot Spot(s)
(4) (Mesopotamia),
30cm x 26cm / 15" x 11" (P) © Ranna®.
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Hot Spot(s)
(5) (Mesopotamia)
26cm x 30cm/ 11" x 15" (P) © Ranna®.
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Hot Spot(s)
(6) (Mesopotamia)
30cm x 26cm / 15" x 11" (P) © Ranna®.
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Hot Spot(s)
(7) (Mesopotamia)
30cm x 26cm / 15" x 11" (P) © Ranna®.
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FOR EXAMPLES OF OTHER WORK, CLICK HERE
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The Hot Spots
works are inspired by satellite images courtesy of the MODIS Rapid
Response Team, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center. Members of the
team attended the showing of these art works at the Embassy of
Australia Gallery (Washington DC).
ENLARGEMENTS
ARTIST'S
HOT SPOTS STATEMENT,
EXHIBITION CODE, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS etc - NEXT
Reviewer:
Ranna's art "...explores the
profound while serving as a portal
to beauty."
(Kennelly, E., re Island, Continent exhibition by Ranna®, Washington
DC.
The author writes for Art & Antiques,
Art & Auction, ARTnews.) |
* Also quoted: Thompson, F. Director's
foreword in catalog to Ranna's mid-career survey
exhibition Walking into Light, Perc Tucker
Gallery, Australia
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