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This ebook presents the text from Greg Rook’s 2007–09 series And this, too, shall pass away - a cycle of works first developed for the David Roberts Art Foundation. Drawing on the stations of the cross, American frontier mythology, and the bleak prophetic mood of writers such as Cormac McCarthy, the project examines our recurring cultural fantasy of ‘returning to nature’ and the darker ideological currents that shape it.
The text charts the evolution of the fourteen paintings, from their initial conceptual framework to the way they gradually absorbed fears around societal fragility, ecological collapse and the responsibilities of early parenthood. It reflects on the seductive contradictions of wilderness thinking, the troubling legacy of figures such as Ted Kaczynski, and the uneasy thrill of imagining civilisation’s end. The ebook also outlines the project’s cinematic approach – a shifting, hand-held perspective designed to draw the viewer into an atmosphere of suspense and vulnerability.
Originally published to accompany the completed series at the David Roberts Art Foundation, this digital edition offers insight into the ideas, anxieties and cultural references that shaped one of Rook’s most significant early bodies of work, and provides an essential companion for collectors, researchers and anyone interested in contemporary painting’s engagement with myth, faith and catastrophe.