Remnants: Anthony Mead

Remnants, a solo MFA thesis exhibition by Anthony Mead, investigates the relationship between humans and fire by exploring human origins, history, societal development, and fire identity. His interests revolve around fires transformative properties and how it may be a lens to understand ourselves, global ecological impact, and responsibility. The installations, created with the techniques of printmaking, painting, and sculpture, incorporate fundamental elements such as charcoal, soot, ash and wood. By navigating a relationship between ourselves and materials, such as the kind of emphasis and importance we place on the fire-scarred trunk of a tree or the ash of paper that once held someone’s wish, Mead hopes we can start to understand interconnected relationships more broadly. Mead believes that fire is the genesis for the often-felt separation between what it is to be human and what it is to be natural, saying “fire today has become so isolated into its parts that we no longer see it for what it is, a relationship dependent on its parts synthesizing together to give it existence, the same way that we, as humans, are a series of relationships dependent on the structure we are part of to exist and continue to maintain our being.”

Hours for Wish Piece Participation
2 to 4 p.m., Jan. 31 
1 to 3 p.m. Feb. 1

Image: Courtesy of the artist