Stephen Melton
Many are aware that humanity is not in isolation & it depends entirely on working with nature. However, humanity’s attitudes & actions are still firmly rooted in dominance & exploitation, driven by our needs & fuelled by structures like consumerism. This relationship need to be reevaluated.
All the creatures used within my work have for one reason or another died through humanity’s interaction. Over the last few years I have focused on many associated issues from the most basic unfortunate mishaps like road kill, the need to collect & own the exotic, the more complex issues like marine life & the policies we employ to look after these ‘assets’, to even the human appreciation of nature. I am interested in the educated & creative visions we need to enable humanity to be successful custodians of the oceans & ecosystems.
Using bronze & plastics to preserve the natural world references the museum culture, especially the virulent & naive collecting during the Victorian Era, when species seemed unconnected & inexhaustible.
I believe education is at the foundations of good conservation.
Review
There is an uncomfortable paradox created. The artist collects species that are already being depleted, therefore one could argue contributing in a small way to the negative impact human kind are already creating, but he also venerates the natural world in a statuary way, implying a great importance and relevance to it & highlighting the atrocities that are continuing. This creates a visual jarring for the viewer.
Looking at examples, species & preserved specimens in this manner, within a gallery context, creates a post apocalyptic feeling within the work. One could easily theorise the extinct nature of the specimens being viewed akin to looking at a stuffed Dodo, or more recently reading about the Baiji White River Dolphin, tragically declared extinct during 2007.
His collecting of species however is actually a form of recycling with an attempt to re-examine what has perceptibly been lost or discarded. For example, the dog fish used for Square were actually sourced from local fisherman who had brought them in amongst their catch & were therefore going to throw them back into the sea, alive, injured or dead. Prior to his more recent installations, Melton collected species that had been killed alongside our roads across Britain, & cast them into bronze with an intention of acknowledging the importance of their life and the discarded way in which they had been left. The insects he is now encasing in resin are in response to popularised children’s magazines that issue thousands of specimens for our population without seemingly any regard for their life. Within the publication, there is no attempt to communicate how the insects have been sourced, or how they were killed.
Melton’s current ambitious projects include larger installations that discuss these concerns. One example is an attempt to collect an equivalent in number to a hive of bees, sourcing the already dead examples from local hives across Kent. Our bee numbers are drastically decreasing & the impact that this will have on our climate & eco-system is apparently so vast that we cannot quite comprehend the impact.
My work primarily comes from love, respect & admiration for nature. I wish to venerate nature & embellish the importance of understanding it, protecting species & ecosystems.
Melton’s current practice discusses the human impact on the natural world, both in an historical & contemporary context. Using current scientific research as his primary source of information, Melton responds in what can be described as a controversial way.
