Nature Conquered, Nature Reclaims? Photograph

St John Montgomery-Frobisher’s work explores the concepts of connection and disconnection, continuity and change, appearance and substance: within ourselves, with the natural and built environment, and as a function of the cultures in which we exist as individuals and social beings. Contemplating how we are increasingly becoming simultaneously both more and less connected to ourselves, our planet and each other — socially, geographically, environmentally and technologically — his visual expressions juxtapose, assemble and deconstruct the essence of these sometimes paradoxical ideas and manifestations across time and space. St John's photography of the natural world, and the impact of the modern world's infrastructure thereupon, often inspires his abstract painting, which deploys colour, texture and the relative transparency, opacity and proximity of shapes to engage the dualism of phenomenological and emotional response within the constantly-connected twenty-first century self. By reflecting and challenging our internal and external worlds as denizens of the contemporary epoch — and as the present custodians of the atemporal human condition that connects us to our forebears — the tensions and harmonies, the façade and the substance, and the concomitance and contradiction of the bridges and boundaries of our shared existence are revealed by this visionary artist’s inspirational creations.