Two Years
2020 and 2021
Artist: Jason Godeke
Location: 400 E Laurel St. Fort Bragg CA, across the street from Bainbridge Park
Is this dyptich simply two paintings of random dreamlike imagery? Yes and no. Every element of Two Years is a reflection of Jason's (and our collective) lived experience and reactions to the COVID pandemic. The dotted red line that traces the mountain ridge connecting both murals is taken directly from the national Covid death chart for the years 2020 and 2021.
Location: 400 E Laurel St. Fort Bragg CA, across the street from Bainbridge Park
Is this dyptich simply two paintings of random dreamlike imagery? Yes and no. Every element of Two Years is a reflection of Jason's (and our collective) lived experience and reactions to the COVID pandemic. The dotted red line that traces the mountain ridge connecting both murals is taken directly from the national Covid death chart for the years 2020 and 2021.
|
|
The Year 2020
2020
This is Jason's vision of the COVID virus. Unlike the green blob with red dots, which can seem to connote malevolent stickiness, Jason depicts it as a passive cloud of, mechanical programming. Often our language around viruses can anthropomorphize them, as if they are "looking for a new host." In truth, they are simple biological systems, passively transported to environments where they infect and replicate, or inhospitable locations where they are destroyed by the elements. In 2020, they loom over the landscape like the low clouds of an approaching storm.
This is Jason's vision of the COVID virus. Unlike the green blob with red dots, which can seem to connote malevolent stickiness, Jason depicts it as a passive cloud of, mechanical programming. Often our language around viruses can anthropomorphize them, as if they are "looking for a new host." In truth, they are simple biological systems, passively transported to environments where they infect and replicate, or inhospitable locations where they are destroyed by the elements. In 2020, they loom over the landscape like the low clouds of an approaching storm.
2020
The crocodile chasing the child in the mask is a reference to the health alert levels of yellow, orange, red and purple that were used to communicate the rates of infection within Mendocino county. Like many of us, Jason distinctly remembers watching with increasing alarm as we edged closer and closer into the purple zone.
Jason was inspired by mural fragments found in the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan. Check out the De Young's incredible collection here.
The crocodile chasing the child in the mask is a reference to the health alert levels of yellow, orange, red and purple that were used to communicate the rates of infection within Mendocino county. Like many of us, Jason distinctly remembers watching with increasing alarm as we edged closer and closer into the purple zone.
Jason was inspired by mural fragments found in the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan. Check out the De Young's incredible collection here.
2020
Virus particulate drifts out of the crocodile's mouth, curling towards flowers, abalone, starfish, and California poppies, a reference to the phase of the pandemic when we hadn't yet fully identified the virus's methods of transmission or persistence on surfaces. Every foray outside the house felt suffused with risk.
Virus particulate drifts out of the crocodile's mouth, curling towards flowers, abalone, starfish, and California poppies, a reference to the phase of the pandemic when we hadn't yet fully identified the virus's methods of transmission or persistence on surfaces. Every foray outside the house felt suffused with risk.
The Year 2021
|
The bubonic plague or Black Death swept through Europe in waves of infection and re-infection between 1345 and 1353. Though Bosch's famous work is a warning against sinfulness and lust, it was within the context of a society still reeling from a pandemic catastrophe which seemed to the people at the time to choose its victims at random. Many people then, like now, chose to confront the randomness by throwing caution to the wind and living for maximum pleasure.
|
2021
This alarmed creature with it's head in a glass bell is a reference to the feeling of moon-suit sensory deprivation feeling you can get when walking around wearing a mask, glasses, and often earpods. It's also a direct reference to Heironymous Bosch's famous tryptich The Garden of Earthly Delights, painted 1490-1500AD. As the daily fear and anxiety of 2020 gave way to pandemic exhaustion in 2021, many people tried to reestablish social connections through small group pods, with varying degrees of success. Jason remembers feeling like one strange creature out of many, drifting across the landscape of Fort Bragg, greeting friends from inside a self-imposed bubble of personal space. |
This would be an excellent covid safe date. Also, this boat would keep out the owls.
|
|
|
See all our murals in
|
