About six years ago I did a painting of a group of schoolgirls, heads down, glued to their cell-phones. The idea came from seeing just such a group walking through Carterton, each absorbed in their own world, events in cyberspace proving more compelling than their friends at that moment.
It seemed a surprising sight back then, but fast forward to 2014 and it would be far more surprising to see a group of teenagers without handheld devices, or a couple on a night out together without a cell phone within easy reach.
Carterton painter Jan Eagle has explored our growing dependence on mobile phones in a new series of paintings called Heavenly Communications. Her theory is that mobile phones are not only changing our close relationships but also usurping traditional channels of spiritual fulfilment as well.
“I have been taking a playful look at the prayer like connection to the ether that today’s social networking systems provide us with,” says Jan. “I’m wondering if social networking will even replace the power of prayer one day!”
This might seem fanciful until you look at the statistics. In Brazil, Russia and Vietnam, subscriptions for mobile phones have outstripped the country’s population. Globally that figure is 6.5 billion mobile subscriptions - close to one mobile phone for every man, woman and child on the planet.
And mobile phones now provide us with much more than even a few years ago, having seemingly overnight become ‘Smart’. Statistics New Zealand tells us that in 2012, a third of households accessed the Internet via a mobile phone, a figure that’s up 26% since 2009.
Art can be politically and socially engaged, holding up a mirror to society, and Jan has worked in this tradition before with her ‘Provider series’, which saw her drawing supermarket shoppers from the front seat of her parked car. ‘Heavenly Communications’ is also based on on-the-spot sketches and observations in her locale, and presumably her own experiences with family and friends.
In one of her paintings, a couple embrace lovingly while at the same time putting in hasty texts to outside parties. Dogs wait patiently as their owners finish dialling, and even tots in prams tote their own devices.
Jan Eagle is Showing at Aratoi 17 April 2014 - 12 May 2014