Anna Dibble: Artist Statement – July 2023

My work is grounded in the wild, driven by how alienated from the ‘natural world’ we have become and what has occurred because of this. It’s an imaginary narrative about life on earth: from animals and plants in early oceans recorded in layers of rock to the current dysfunctional ecosystem discovered in the ice and land cores, and experienced in our daily planetary existence. It’s a personal mythology in a fictional world of non-linear, circular time. An amalgamation of Past, Present, Future. I’m interested in the
speed and character of change generated by the rotations and seismic activity of the earth, the moon and tidal cycles, and how all of these are influenced by what we have done to our planet’s atmosphere, its inhabitants, and now even its tilt and rotation. All the interconnections.  

The current series, ‘Intrepid Voyagers’ emerges from a sense that all living beings are refugees of a kind, and that we’re evolving more rapidly than we can imagine. We’re lost in many ways, searching for something elusive, something enlightening perhaps. The paintings address our strong biological urge to survive, hold hope and curiosity close to our hearts, and keep trying to follow unanswered questions, no matter the odds. 

“Urge, and urge, and urge. Always the procreate urge of the world.”    Walt Whitman – from Song of Myself