“the squash gardeners”
by dylan jones
artist statement
this painting is one of many works that build out the world of the Navigators, who are the tiny green and pink beings that populate the terraces and gardens. the Navigators evolved in my work largely as a method of visual note taking. instead of using a spreadsheet to keep track of the logistics of my art practice (ideas for new works, themes i want to explore, etc.) i have a team of unruly microbial beings who help me with this process. i haven't decided whether i created the Navigators or if they came from somewhere else and "infected" my work; i like the latter idea more. regardless, they were not content just being my archivists and now most of my paintings are covered in Navigators, like ants swarming a picnic. i think my primary interest in these beings is using them to explore various forms of cooperation, both between themselves and between other species and the ecosystems they inhabit. the worlds these beings live in are volatile and chaotic and full of dangerous things, so they really need to work together to survive. i like watching the Navigators explore their surroundings, try out different forms of governance, and create their own idiosyncratic cultures.
in “the squash gardeners,” i wanted to set up a political economy that revolves around the annual squash harvest. there is only one squash plant so the resources have to be managed extremely efficiently and pragmatically so nobody starves. there is constant negotiation between the Navigators and the other insects who also rely on the squash. in this painting i depict a giant Navigator body that functions as a stand in for the collective memory of this particular Navigator culture. that's another tendency of mine, i like to depict things like culture and memory as living beings, so they function as characters in their own right. the body is covered in scaffolding and appears to be undergoing an expansion project from the right leg. there is a pink vaporous substance (pollen?) that appears to play an important role in the life cycle of the squash garden and in the life processes of the collective memory giant. this is one of the first paintings i made where i incorporated relief sculpture elements. the squash plant and a few of the other elements are made of baked clay that i pressed onto the paper. i think that having physical elements mingling with the 2D characters on the paper opens up some interesting narrative possibilities that i'm still playing with. the physicality of the squash could imply a hierarchy, as it's the being that everybody else's survival depends on. there is also a clay Navigator speaking to a 2D Navigator in the top corner. i don't know what that's about but definitely something is happening up there.