JACK VALENTINE IS A PAINTER BASED IN TĀMAKI MAKAURAU. HIS PRACTICE IS CURRENTLY CONCERNED WITH UTILISING SIGNIFIERS AND OTHER ELEMENTS FROM COMIC STRIPS TO EXPLORE ITS NARRATIVE POSSIBILITIES AND EXPERIMENT WITH THE STANDARD PAINTING FORMAT. HE GENERALLY ADDRESSES THEMES OF EVERYDAY LIFE THROUGH AN OFTEN IRONIC AND ABSURDIST LENS.

Today it may be truly absurd to imagine a future where things are okay. Dystopian science fiction seems to be the default but it has become irrelevant and obsolete because it no longer needs to shed light on the problems of the world. We are relentlessly exposed to them. Utopias impose a way of life that is dystopian to large portions of minority populations.

What I want to imagine is a middle of the road ‘Topia’ if we can call it that. A future in which things aren’t too bad. Where we still have back gardens to tend to but we still forget to take the washing in when it rains.
Mark Fisher’s theory of hauntology suggests we can’t imagine new futures. That all we can do is revive the old futures dreamed up from before the 2000s. However, I think we should try. How do we stay motivated in the present if we can’t imagine a decent future 30 years from now? Stumbling through a few clichés and revivals is worth it in the search for a new, okay future.

Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker published in their essay “Notes on Metamodernism” claimed our culture is oscillating between a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern cynicism. Similarly to Mark Fisher, they suggest we are lost but still marching forward without a clear narrative. These paintings are doing the same. They march on with an ironic hopefulness that things will at some point cohere.