Artwork Description:
Currently on show at the XI Florence Biennale October 6 - 15 2017 this painting is about The Goat Islands that are located on the south west coast of Jamaica that became the centre of attention in 2015 when the Government of Jamaica proposed to sell the Islands to the Government of China for the purpose of building a transshipment port. The environmentalists and others opposed this move fiercely pointing out that the Goat Islands were part of the Portland Bight, a chain of islands, protected by law passed by the Government of Jamaica. see Portland Bight in Wikipedia. In addition to this the environmentalists maintained that the Goat Islands were an important ecological system, a nursery for baby fish, rare sea grasses and other marine animals, as well as a rare species of baby iguanas that lived on the Islands. All would be destroyed by the creation of a transshipment port which would entail pushing the land into the sea to create a flat land surface fit for a port. The press gave this controversy the moniker Preservation Or Profit The battle raged for over two years until in 2017 the Government announced that the Goat Islands would not be sold. The Environmentalists had won a major battle to save the Goat Islands.
The painting is comprised of four paintings
1. Preservation Or Profit
2. A Nursery for Baby Fish and
other Marine Animals
3. Underwater Landscape
4.
Goat Islands for a Marine Park
based on an aerial photograph of Goat Is. by Max Earle