Ren Hill - 2024

Artist's Statement

The compulsive need for an activity, behavior, or substance that results in harmful effects is the definition of addiction. As someone who has personally struggled within the grasp of a nicotine addiction, I know first-hand how entangled one gets in the love-hate relationship of smoking. I used this life experience as inspiration for my painting on the human impact on the world, Beloved

In this piece, Mother Earth is personified as a woman smoking a pipe. Human figures are clambering up into the pipe as well as holding a match to keep the fire in the bowl going. I used this imagery to convey the idea that humanity is not only harming Earth, but they are sacrificing themselves in the process. This references the extremely poor husbandry of the planet we have found ourselves in, and the risking of future generations by tending the fire of exceeding planetary boundaries on the Earth.

Humanity is portrayed as the tobacco Mother Earth smokes, mirroring the cancerous nature by destroying the host we were created from. Just like cancer, we have multiplied beyond sustainability and are consuming everything. Figures in Her hairline chop down Her trees and a pipe pumps oil from Her heart onto the surface. Our destruction is met with little resistance; the Earth will not fight us. We are killing Her, yet she keeps the lip of the pipe resting on her own.