WATER

KimKeeverAbstract8585c

Abstract 8585c

Kim Keever

C-Print Mounted to Dibond

76.2 × 58.4 cm

2014

With the windows wide open, I listen to the water trickling over the two small waterfalls in the pond Willem built in the garden.  “White noise is soothing to listen to,” says the Baby Sense book, but I’m convinced it’s not just the whiteness that is so comforting. It’s the wateriness of the noise too.

I’ve often wondered about this affection for water that is universal amongst humans. Is it because of the life-nourishment necessity of fresh water? Then why is it so comforting to look at the ocean? Is it a deep-celled memory of time in our mother’s womb, sustained in a deep pressure hug by her amniotic fluid? Is it the mitochondria in our cells that remember being their own entities, long ago, when life existed only in the primordial soup of a newly formed planet?

Whatever the reasons, contemplating water is such a delight, and what better way to celebrate than through art? I was alerted to this exhibition by an employee at artsy who is busy promoting Zaria Forman‘s work (I had featured a painting on the Gallery of Perspective). And are all the works in Waterways III not just incredibly beautiful?

Contemplating the artworks, I can’t help but be reminded of the plight in South Africa. We have enough fresh water only until 2025. The aquifers beneath the earth are not being replenished because the full water cycle has been disrupted by lawns and parking lots and chemically fertilised corn fields. We have droughts, then we have floods, all part of Climate Change. And within a few short years, we will not have fresh water.

We can look at the beauty of water, and be soothed by the sounds, keeping in mind not to waste, and to fix our leaky taps when we spot them.

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