Dust Image 1988

Editor: Trevor Bell’s "Dust Image" presents these hazy, horizontal ochre strokes. It feels so simple and elemental, almost like a landscape obscured by fog. What visual cues stand out to you? Curator: I see an echo of ancient ziggurats, those stepped pyramids of Mesopotamia. The horizontal layers could symbolize humanity's aspiration to reach the heavens, while the "dust" speaks to the inevitable decay and impermanence of such grand ambitions. Editor: So, it's like a reminder of the cycle of building and ruin? Curator: Precisely. The choice of ochre, an earth pigment, further reinforces the connection to the land, to history, to the very stuff of which civilizations are made and to which they return. The violet line, so thin, so fragile, almost seems to signify hope. Editor: That's fascinating; I didn't consider it in such a cyclical way. I'll definitely see "Dust Image" differently now. Curator: Consider how such symbols allow the past to speak to us anew.