Jenny Reddin - 'The Very Stupid Man'

Wednesday 16 October - Sunday 10 November 2019

Jenny Reddin is an artist. She lives and works on her family property in the Yarra Valley. She doesn’t believe she is a “greenie”, nor is she a political activist, she is just someone with a heightened sense of what is happening on her land and a sense of frustration that not enough is being done to curb the impact of human activity on the earth. Her frustration is heightened because she believes that world leaders are reluctant to take action because of short term economic and political factors, in short, self interest.

Reddin wrote a story several years ago to accompany a series of works that she produced during an extended period of drought during which she watched her dams dry up and her soil turn to dust.

Early in 2019 she decided to revisit the story and produce a second series of works. This time, however, the works directly relate to the human factor. Reddin has an interest in archaeology and in particular the evidence of early human life on earth. For this series, she has researched images of bones, fragment and human remains. These are the ancestors who walked the earth hundreds of thousands of years ago and who lived for centuries in harmony with nature.

The artist does not advocate living without modern technology but rather becoming more aware of the consequences of the actions we take. Making a profit today at the expense of tomorrow is not a good strategy.