Lakeside 2018

Joshua Flint’s ambiguous, contemporary painting, Lakeside, presents us with the enduring motif of figures in a landscape, a scene replete with collective memory. Here, beneath ghostly, bell-shaped flowers, we see figures lounging, almost weightless, against the imposing backdrop of a rugged mountain. The mountain looms large, an archetype rooted deep in our cultural psyche. In antiquity, mountains were sacred, the dwelling places of gods, symbols of stability and permanence. Think of Mount Olympus in Greek mythology, or Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. Flint subtly subverts this symbolism. His mountain is shrouded in darkness, rendered with an unsettling instability. It evokes not serenity, but a sense of foreboding. This reflects a modern anxiety, a subconscious recognition of nature’s power, and humanity’s precarious place within it. The mountain persists, transformed by the relentless march of time, a silent witness to our ever-evolving anxieties and aspirations.