St Brendon - Partick McGrathBrendan, an Irish saint and one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland is oft
St Brendon - Partick McGrathBrendan, an Irish saint and one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland is often depicted as a navigator for his legendary voyage. The Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot or Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, as it is known in Latin, is a Christian narrative with pagan roots. Some maps of the time of Christopher Columbus depict an island called St. Brendan’s island, located west of the Canary Islands. On the borders of this retablo painting we see line drawings of fish and other sea creatures that are either extinct or endangered. On the top a squid points with his tentacles to some the Canary Islands and Puerto Rico. In this case Puerto Rico is implied as the mythic island of Brendan. Just as the legendary island from Irish folklore, the U.S. colony of Puerto Rico shows in some maps but not always. In some maps it’s a real country, in others it’s invisible. The colonial status is often elusive, lost in a limbo-like state and concealed behind a thick curtain of bureaucratic mist. On board along with Brendan we find three babies that represent for the three C’s: Consumerism, Corpocracy and Colonialism. A plastic box, a bottle of rum and a barrel of oil are direct products of these practices. Brendan stands firmly on the center holding a model ship with Christian crosses on its sails. Part myth, part real, the saint has new stories to tell in the age of the Anthropocene, where islander populations are submerged into passive consumerism while being governed by neo-colonial entities that perpetuate their dogmas and policies and continue to exploit nature’s resources uninterrupted for centuries. -- source link
#patrick mcgrath#contemporary art#artists#consumerism#capitalism#colonialism