“Everything we use
is either from mining or agriculture.”
Jeannette Unite
Jeannette Unite
The South African artist Jeannette
Unite has for the last two decades explored the effects of mining on the
landscape and in her paintings, drawings and glass works generated by this
interest she uses an abstract aesthetic to impart her discoveries and
observations.
As she told The Mining
Weekly’s Jade Davenport “I have chosen to depict the visual imagery in an abstract format because
the process of mining in itself is abstract, involving the amalgamation of a
variety of disciplines. I want people to respond sensually to things because I
think that helps them to access any idea.”
Over this
long association with what is considered by many to be a destructive and
irresponsible industry Unite has come to appreciate her complicity within the
process.
“It’s easy
to criticize mining from the outside. I used to feel the same way as a lot of
artists – that it’s a dirty, destructive business. But I came to see I was just
as complicit because I derived benefits from the industry. Everything I use,
all the materials that go into my work, start life in the ground. Those dope
smoking artists who want everything to be natural… well, cyanide is also
natural. So is uranium,” Unite told African
Mining in 2013.
And over her
many visits to mine sites to feed her inspiration Unite has gathered minerals,
mine tailings and site specific sands to make her own pastels and paint as well
as using them as ingredients for her glass sculptures. For Unite, the magic
inherent in her raw materials enable her landscapes to be literally made from the
land itself.
From
necessity Unite has developed a close association with the industry but she is
no apologist for it. She is well aware of the environmental crisis caused by
the exploitation and contends that the repair should be economic.
As she has
said “Mining should be made more expensive. Then we would not be able to
randomly take minerals out of the ground. If it cost us more to produce, we
would be more careful with what we mine. The value of materials is determined
today not by the cost of extracting them but by stock markets. For example, if
we used platinum judiciously we would get better value for it. Platinum is a
necessary component of modern cars. But nobody buys cars for their platinum
content. They use other criteria. So the value of platinum in the vehicle is
hidden. If it became a lot more expensive it would be valued more. Commodity brokers
think they are working with numbers, when in reality they are working with
something that is magical.”
Unite’s
current exhibition Complicit Geographies is on show at England’s Contemporary Art Natural Innovation
Centre until the 22nd of
January.
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