Exclusion Zone

So if you stand upright on two feet and are holding this paper with unique, opposable thumbs, then these images are pretty disturbing, and John Mahony is not offering much comfort. The female figure — which may be seen, as is common in the visual arts, as a healer, a nurturer, a symbol of fertility — seems all too frail and vulnerable to put things right for our species.

Sound a bit heavy? Want to hear some solutions instead of all doom and gloom? Well, you won’t find many at this show, that’s not what Mahony sets out to do. From my conversations with him, I’d say he’s just as interested in solutions as you or I, but he makes no presumptions about being the guy with the answers. And he seems keenly aware that if Homo sapiens is one of the species knocked off the planet by our own actions, then the world will go on as it always has. One species goes and another one comes.

But I’ll offer my own words of wisdom, such as they are. The one comfort we can take is that all of this is fully our responsibility. Therefore, it is within our reach to stop it. It’ll take some doing for all of us to get over our denial and accept the fact that you can’t burn your house down if you want to live in it; that if you piss in your bed it’s going to stink. But since we are the perpetrators in this situation, we have only to change direction.

That can start when we’re all willing to take a good honest look at reality. Look carefully at these images and see them for what they are. John and his models have walked far into deserts, traveled down rivers, put themselves at personal risk in badly polluted areas to look deeply into our worst messes. Look at the images and remember — we did that. Do you think it’s beautiful?

John Mahony’s Exclusion Zone runs through March 9, at the First Street Gallery at 422 First Street, Old Town, Eureka. The gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.

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