It was the first day of October, as a person who had never been to any art exhibits, I went inside an ordinary looking building that when one walk pass it they would not think twice about what is inside. As I stepped inside, I found myself in a different world, looking at eight giant canvases forming a circle hanging down from the ceiling. Each of them has some writing in black bold letters on the back. As I walk towards the center, I was overwhelmed by the paintings. The painting seems abandoned at first sight and they all seem to be screaming at me, trying to tell me something; but at the same time it was silent except for the low voices of people complimenting, discussing, and explaining about the giant paintings before them.
Hans Weigand, the artist responsible for the eight giant canvases, chose to cover the canvases with a layer of paint to set the time of the day. Next, he uses the pictures of different coastlines throughout California and Hawaii as the next layer to present the setting. Finally, he covers the painting with a last layer of dark liquids.
Each of these paintings contains a “lone surfer” representing the last man on Earth, symbolizing the end of humanities with just that one person who survived. The old, rundown buildings and broken RVs further portraits how the time of technologies had passed and that the only thriving things were things of nature. Also, some of the canvases have pictures of apes and bridges and a trailer truck; which suggests that even though the canvases are separated, they are connected because of the similarities within the painting.
Just as nature gave humans everything they needed to survive and evolve at their own different rates, as Weigand’s paintings showed, everything was eventually given back to nature as it once was. However, it’s not all hopeless, for there is a “lone surfer” left in the world with bits and pieces of technologies here and there to rebuild society.
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