Environmental messages and social commentary are presented through the whimsical yet confronting tableaux of Candi Dentice. Exquisitely rendered landscapes form a backdrop for the surreal and symbolic subjects of her paintings, which deal with the costs of economic expansion and consumerism. With her highly refined painting technique, honed through formal education and extensive experience, Dentice expertly produces fantastical landscapes which skilfully evoke the beauty of natural settings.
The exceptional beauty and degree of detail realised in each scene is a result of Dentice’s on-going and in-depth observation of nature. Dentice carefully considers and maps individual details, from the species of tree through to the grain patterns of various types of wood. This study provides a foundation for her images, allowing her to fully express the complexity and fragility of these environments. In one work, Fall, hundreds of leaves are shown in descent; each one representing an actual leaf collected and documented by the artist, precisely painted in strikingly unexpected hues with each tiny imperfection revealed. Though these works are often set in a surreal context, Dentice is careful to ensure that the conditions are consistent within each created world, paying great attention to light, colour and atmospheric effects.
Narrative and symbolism are the primary tools Dentice uses to confront environmental issues; the subjects of her work often being metaphorical and surreal. Through her careful juxtaposition of symbolic elements, the messages in her works become clear; for example, the progression of a hardwood floor into a receding forest calls attention to the costs of the consumption of natural resources in Lost.
The scale in these works is often ambiguous. Manmade elements may be dwarfed by gargantuan trees, or enlarged to overpower their natural surroundings. This rejection of naturalism gestures to the prominence of allegory in her paintings. It is clear that Dentice does not want the viewer to merely appreciate the beauty of her work, but to reflect on the consequences of our interactions with nature.
New Work represents a shift away from the overtly surreal towards greater subtlety of subject matter: Dentice, painting more symbolically than representationally, uses primarily natural elements to reflect on human conditions and conceptions of nature. Diverse topographies evoke of the variety and richness of a natural world that appears inaccessible and devoid of human presence, save a flock of origami birds or a wind-up toy, pointedly symbolising the destruction of natural environments. In this way, Dentice issues a chilling warning about the inevitable future of our consumerist society; a future in which the natural is replaced by the artificial.
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