CAROLINE BAY PLAYGROUND
Roselyn Cloake
Infinite or Finite? Lens Series 2, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
Friends of the Aiganlighe Collection, Aiganlighe Art Gallery, 2023.28.1
This artwork by Roselyn Fauth (nee Cloake) offers a fresh perspective on our world and cycles of life. A sixth-generation local with Dutch heritage, she draws inspiration from her family, and in this painting they are symbolized as light and wind through the use of colour and fragmented shapes that gives us a sense that the painting is swirling and moving.
Movement and cycles in this painting also point to the artist’s reflection on geological cycles, for example, the stages of lava – from a flowing hot molten liquid to a hard and stationary rock, and even to a substance that is ground down over time and swept away by the wind. Fauth reflects on the length of time these cycles take and how short our lives as people are in comparison.
Fauth is influenced by cubist artists and uses an infinity symbol with colours that break it into facets. Reminiscent of a lighthouse lens, it is like her painting encourages us to shine a spotlight and have a closer look at our natural world and consider the impact our choices will have on future generations.
Weaving together thoughts of ancestry and geology, Fauth asks us to ponder the concepts of infinity and finiteness – through thinking about the vast scale of geological time versus our own lifetimes.
