This work is part of an ongoing cycle exploring ambivalent states of contemporary existence.
Title: Progress
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Year: 2025
Format: Portrait format (18 × 24 inches)
Colour Space: Primary colours (red, blue, yellow), complemented by green, black, and beige
Stylistic Classification: Geometric abstract composition with constructivist and surrealist elements
„Progress“ depicts a brightly coloured, crystalline cloud rising from an industrial building, combining geometric forms, fragments of nature, and a central eye into a scene between consumer culture, constructed order, and the natural world.
Progress as Promise
In an affirmative reading, the cloud symbolises human creativity and innovation. Its bright colours and clear geometry evoke the designed surfaces of contemporary products, celebrating imagination, choice, and the appeal of novelties. Progress appears as an open process in which awareness, design, and responsibility remain connected.
Progress as Displacement
From a critical perspective, the cloud becomes a metaphor for emissions and hidden costs. What appears light and alluring rises from an industrial origin, while nature appears fragmented and vulnerable. Awareness exists, yet is often outweighed by convenience and consumption.
Conclusion
The work holds progress between promise and displacement, leaving the tension between creation, consumption, and responsibility unresolved—true to the integrity of ambivalence.