Self Portrait (as Nature)

Yin Yung Sabrina Pun

This small piece is my first attempt of mezzotint, a process with styles straddling across painting and print. Inspired by the ancient Arcadian deity Pan, the God of wilderness and nature, but I destroyed the human part of the satyr god and instead replaced it with a wild animal-a tiger. The allegory of the tiger asserts and reinforces the strength of wilderness, represented by the goat side of Pan, overpowering its human qualities. The subtle appearance from the darkness surrounding the creature hinted at its near extinction, its dying state, much like nature continuing to diminish from the cosmos under our dominance and conquer. As we may believe nature to only exist to be squeezed dry of its bones, we sought to eliminate Pan for being an outlier to the prowess of human civilisation. Yet despite its invisibility, we are never independent of its omnipresence. What is civilisation if not for Him to provide wilderness and nature as the foundation to build on? One day, Pan will be able to re-establish His dominion; until then we will be continuing to feel its resilience and vengeful wrath, in the form of extreme climates. Nature has intelligence and is more wiser and unfathomable than we think.