Co.Lab Gallery presents
ANTHONY EPP
OCULUS ALTERITAS (The Eye of Otherness)
OPENING SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16TH, 2024 7-10 PM.
EXHIBITION CLOSES DECEMBER 1ST, 2024
The fantasy genre is often dismissed as indulgent escapism, an idle removal from a world of drudgery and calamity, but fantastical art and literature often goes beyond that. Looking through the lens of fantasy shows worlds that are bizarre and fantastical, but if we look back through the lens, we can see how bizarre and fantastical our own world has become.
Prevalent tropes in fantasy have become disturbingly applicable: Evil times of war and famine. The slow decay of a once great empire. The rise of a dark lord that threatens to enslave the free peoples of the land. The mustering of sinister forces in the shadows. The presence of a magic so powerful it could destroy us all. The World, poised on the brink of ecological disaster.
The advent of a new form of being, possessing intelligence but not consciousness, like an undead - a being with access to great knowledge whose motives are inscrutable, like a demon or a genie.
Artificial Intelligences no longer lurk in the realm of fantasy. AI has emerged with the ability to produce high quality images with intricate detail in a fraction of the time that it would take for a human to do so - even if that human had dedicated a lifetime to the study of Art. A painter of Imaginative Realism in 2024 has to ask the question: why bother?
Here are two answers. Making Art increases the capacity of your imagination and deepens your appreciation for the world around you. This strengthens some intangible part of your being, some force of creative impetus that the AIs lack, but which is still a necessary starting point for their stolen and reassembled images.
Additionally, people are sometimes able to receive strange images from their subconscious minds, be they dreams, visions, or imaginative musings. If it is the goal of an artist to render these images into the real world, as it is with Anthony Epp, then the use of AI is counterproductive. The image presented by the AI is never accurate to the vision, and causes the original vision to fade, like the forgetting of a dream.
Over the years, the sword and the paintbrush have had to justify themselves in the face of firearms and photography. Now the element that is facing obsolescence is humanity itself. We stand, poised on the brink of darkness, the fragile light of truth growing pale against the coming storm.
There is another fantasy trope, that of a small band of plucky adventurers destined to save the world and set everything to right. Perhaps this small band is comprised of artists and dreamers. If enough people can look back through the lens at this world, we can apply the necessary heroics to our own situation.
BIO
Anthony Epp was deeply impressed by the sublime nature of the landscape when he moved to Thunder Bay from Saskatchewan at a young age. Although perpetually in awe of the majesty and intricacy of the outside, Anthony is compelled to capture images based on what can be perceived internally – be that landscapes of the psychological, the fantastic adventures of an active imagination or, perhaps, brief glimpses of some other world.
Anthony studied fine art at Lakehead University and has since been keeping a low profile while working on various art forms, including painting, sculpture, digital art, animation, game design, as well as other projects too silly to bear mentioning.
