Selected Essays & Reviews
Apocalypse Now
With a healthy mix of classical and contemporary music, a cadre of dedicated and talented painting volunteers, and a steady stream of onlookers, Darren Waterston spent the first two weeks of November 2006 creating his most monumental mural project to date, Was and Is Not and Is To Come, on the walls of the ICA’s gallery. Internationally recognized for his unique blend of abstraction and precise attention to representational detail, Waterston draws inspiration for his work from a wide range of sources – a fascination with the natural sciences, an appreciation for a variety of religious and philosophical beliefs (both Eastern and Western), and a long-standing interest in the genre of landscape painting.
The lush surfaces and masterfully rendered detail of
Waterston’s early paintings often depicted highly idealized
representations of the actual environments in which he
worked. His palette included vibrant oranges and reds,
acidic greens, bright pinks and yellows. In recent years,
the colors have become more muted and the work has explored
more fantastic landscapes, leaving the natural world behind
in order to create abstract, other worldly spaces populated
by non-representational forms.
In his current canvases, Waterston combines the acute detail
of his earlier work with the abstraction of his later
paintings to illustrate nebulous landscapes populated with
subtly mutated geological, botanical and mineral
characteristics that, upon closer viewing, do not depict
specific natural phenomena. In addition to evoking a sense
of place without geographic specificity, Waterston
introduces the use of narrative in Was and Is Not and Is
To Come. The immersive mural installation depicts a
continuous and cinematographic interpretation of an
apocalypse.
A visual or literary apocalyptic narrative is traditionally
a poetic and symbolic account of a fearful, often violent
vision that reveals events about the past, the present and
the future. The messenger relays a narrative of worldly
cataclysm, the regeneration of the earth, and the creation
of a terrestrial paradise. Perhaps the best known literary
apocalyptic narrative is the “Book of Revelation” from the
New Testament. Waterston’s title, Was and Is Not and Is
To Come, is taken from the “Book of Revelation,” which
is also referred to as the “Apocalypse of John.” In Chapter
One, the author greets his readers by writing “Grace to you
and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come…”
(1.4) In the fourth chapter, while describing the famous
imagery of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, John writes,
“And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings,
are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night
without ceasing they sing, Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God
the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” (4.8) In
Chapter 17, John writes, “The beast that you saw was, and is
not, and is about to ascend from the bottomless pit and go
to destruction. And the inhabitants of the earth, whose
names have not been written in the book of life from the
foundation of the world, will be amazed when they see the
beast, because it was and is not and is to come.” (17.8)
The “Book of Revelation” was written in the late first
century (c. 96 CE) in Asia Minor and the author is believed
to have been a Christian from the coastal city of Ephesus,
then a part of the Roman Empire. The book was written at a
time when Christians in this region were suffering serious
oppression for their religious beliefs and perhaps refers
specifically to events leading up to the fall of Jerusalem
in 70 CE. The author endured exile on the island of Patmos
because of his Christian faith and he reports that the
visions depicted in the “Book of Revelation” took place on
that island. “I, John, your brother who shares with you in
Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient
endurance, was on the island called Patmos because of the
word of God and the testimony of Jesus.” (1.9) John’s
apocalyptic vision reveals a battle over sovereignty, where
the Roman emperor competes with God and Christ in a contest
for the allegiance of the faithful. The book urges believers
to “hold fast to the faith of Jesus” and to share in the
paradoxical victory of his death.
Throughout the centuries, there have been innumerable
interpretations of the “Book of Revelation” from literal
readings of the book as prophecy to readings that recognize
in its utopian language the promise of hope in the midst of
contemporary situations of suffering and oppression. The
symbolic numbers and colors, animals, and angelic and
demonic beings were familiar images to the audience for
which “The Book of Revelation” was written. The dualistic
language was drawn from the apocalyptic literary genre of
the ancient Near East, the Hebrew Bible, Greece and Rome.
However, while the precise historical circumstances of
Revelation pertained to the Roman world at the end of the
first century, it nonetheless has a universal and timeless
message for all generations. Beliefs and narratives about
the end of the world have fascinated people throughout
history. In nearly every culture, sacred narratives have
related vivid visions of the consummation of God’s plan of
judgment and salvation.
Was and Is Not and Is To Come is a gesture to the
literary and visual history of the apocalypse. Waterston
draws on numerous interpretations of the horrific
destruction of the world, most notably Albrecht Dürer’s
illustrations of the events of the “Book of Revelation,”
which include 15 woodblock prints published in 1498. The
publication came to be considered as authoritative as the
words of John in the “Book of Revelation” and the prints
became the standard artistic models for the depiction of the
apocalypse.
In addition to the “Book of Revelation,” Waterston also
draws on a variety of apocalyptic writings including The
Ethiopic Book of Enoch, The Apocalypse of Baruch
and Emanuel Swedenborg’s Apocalypse Revealed.
However, perhaps as famous a depiction of the apocalyptic
genre as Dürer’s woodblock illustrations is Danté’s epic
poem Inferno. Canto I predicts the horrifying nature
of the entire poem.
Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself
In a dark woods, the right road lost. To tell
About those woods is hard – so tangled and rough
And savage that thinking of it now, I feel
The old fear stirring: death is hardly more bitter.
And yet, to treat the good I found there as well
I’ll tell what I saw, though how I came to enter
I cannot well say, being so full of sleep
Whatever moment it was I began to blunder
Off the true path. But when I came to stop
Below a hill that marked one end of the valley
That had pierced my heart with terror, I looked up
Toward the crest and saw its shoulders already
Manteled in rays of that bright planet that shows
The road to everyone, whatever our journey.
Then I could feel the terror begin to ease
That churned in my heart’s lake all through the night.
As one still panting, ashore from dangerous seas,
Looks back at the deep he has escaped, my thought
Returned, still fleeing, to regard that grim defile
That never left any alive who stayed in it...
The dense symbolism of these literary and visual
apocalyptic depictions, dating from the 1st century to the
Renaissance, situates them on the horizon between
representation and abstraction. It is precisely in that
realm where Waterston’s painting exists. His nebulously
romantic, eerily ominous landscapes, populated by perversely
seductive shapes of indeterminate identity perfectly lend
themselves to an allegorical interpretation of the
apocalypse. And, it is purely from a symbolic perspective
that Waterston has chosen to use the “Book of Revelation”
and the apocalyptic vision as inspiration for Was and Is Not
and Is To Come. In referring to earlier work, Waterston has
commented that “the movement of abstract forms within my
abstract pictorial spaces has suggested creation myths,
cycles of life and decay, sub-molecular structure, or the
internal space of psychology or spirituality.”
Loosely following John’s narrative in the “Book of
Revelation,” Waterston’s mural begins in a cave with the
depiction of a pink-hued primordial mass hanging in the
distant sky. From the cave, the viewer moves into a
fantastic nocturnal forest, dense, distorted, and filled
with variously malformed flora and fauna. The foreboding
stillness of the forest is violently disrupted by a
beautiful and horrific deluge of detritus. Molten rocks,
tree branches, mutated animal forms and shards of metal
tumble from the sky. From the chaotic destruction, a mass of
blackness, comprised of hundreds of startled birds, takes
flight into the open space. The visual narrative culminates
in an image of reverent silence. The eerie empty glow of
dawn stretches across the last passage of the mural.
It would be easy to interpret Waterston’s interest in
depicting the apocalypse in the light of tragic events in
our nation’s recent history and the ever-present fear of
terrorist attacks throughout the world. However, it is not
that simplistic. Waterston employs the apocalyptic narrative
in a much larger context, one that transcends our current
political, religious, social, and economic situations. Was
and Is Not and Is To Come embraces the timeless universality
of the apocalyptic message. The gruesome and horrific
visions prophesized in the “Book of Revelation” and
Inferno were meant to persuade the faithful to stand firm
in their convictions and to resist the overwhelming
pressures to yield to accommodation and compromise.
Throughout time, the narrative of extraordinary devastation
and annihilation has been used to induce people to remain
faithful to a particular belief system. The apocalypse of
John was motivated by the desire to save souls, convert
pagans and terrorize heathens. Thousands of years later,
current religious and political rhetoric is built on the
same strategy of fear – fear of what was, what is not and
what is to come. Whether in religion, politics or nature, we
continue to be fascinated with the apocalyptic narrative of
birth, death, re-birth, judgment and salvation.
Post Apocalyptic Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my deep gratitude to Darren Waterston for enthusiastically accepting our invitation to create a large-scale installation in the ICA’s new gallery. We are honored to be able to highlight the work of this incredibly talented and accomplished artist in our space. Thank you also to Darren’s assistant, Joey Pizialli, whose demands for perfection and irreverent sense of humor set the tone for the entire project. Their enthusiasm quickly infected the group of volunteer painters who came every day to lend their talent to the installation. Our deep appreciation goes to Jason Adkins, Kelly Clark, Ruben Duran, Susan Komar, Ti Mai, Frances Marin, Mike Oechsli, Fanny Retsek, Michele Scott, and Margaret Wherry. A great debt of thanks also goes to photographer Anton Orlov who documented the two-week installation. The results of his tireless efforts can be seen in his documentary that accompanies the exhibition and this publication. It was incredibly inspiring to see this dedicated community of artists working together to fulfill Darren’s vision. Graphic artist Victoria May has sensitively and creatively captured the project and the process in this beautiful brochure that will serve as a lasting document for this ephemeral work. Thanks also go to Rodney Gluck of NextPress as well as Rob Borella for their generous support in the production of this publication. Finally, I would like to thank Fanny Retsek, Program Manager at the ICA, for her enthusiastic dedication to all the details involved in the exhibition and the brochure. It is the combined efforts of all these people that made the installation so successful and the documentation so unique.