The work: Natasha Zraikat, A New Era, 2023. Oil on canvas, 51 x 76cm. $3,500.Courtesy: the artist
A fervent environmentalist, Gold Coast-based artist Natasha Zraikat uses a carefully constructed aesthetic vocabulary of fantastical elements and deliberately executed realism to visually rekindle man’s connection with the natural world. In her work A New Era, we see several parts of her practice come together in a single image: dreamy skyscapes, symbolic portraiture, and a touch of the magical. The subject of this portrait is a close friend of the artist, confident, defiant, and set against a mass of clouds catching the light, dramatically rendered in an almost Romantic fashion. In contrast to the stark realism of Zraikat’s execution, we see the sitter sprouting large ram’s horns, which curl out from his forehead and visually dominate the upper portion of the piece. This incongruous feature transports the sitter from the ordinary world and into the realms of mythology. Man and beast are one, circumventing traditional narratives that elevate man above the rest of the natural world. “We are, after all, the only species posing a real threat to our own existence,” says Zraikat, “perhaps, in our eternal quest for information, power and control, we have forgotten what it truly means to be a part of our natural world.”