Thermal Consequence, 2024, references imagery from Chilean lithium pools, typical to Ginsburg’s practice of depicting the unseen technical systems which facilitate contemporary civilization as we know it. Nodding to Carol...
Thermal Consequence, 2024, references imagery from Chilean lithium pools, typical to Ginsburg’s practice of depicting the unseen technical systems which facilitate contemporary civilization as we know it. Nodding to Carol Rhodes’ work, Thermal Consequence is an atmospheric, slippery translation of real space. Interested in the positive and negative impacts of development around mineral brines for alternative fuel production, Thermal Consequence is formally an exploration of landscape painting, and thematically a social and scientific inquisition into the imprint of energy mining. Lithium mining as a topic and an industry is pregnant with contradictions, as is true with many of the alternatives to fossil fuels and coal posited as environmentally friendly. Mining poses tremendous environmental, social and political challenges to an area rich in natural resources. Ginsburg treats the lithium field as a hypothetical site of industrial production- weighing and then abstracting the scene as a real landscape as well as an origin point of much of the power in contemporary post-industrialized society. Ginsburg’s application of paint: sulphuric, reddish tones emerging from a metallic cloud, evoke rather than depict the subject matter.
