Chris Heaphy’s This is the World that We Live In describes a globalised culture in which time and space is collapsed. His paintings reveal an agglomeration of signs drawn from popular culture, social and natural histories and symbolic languages from multiple artistic traditions. In a world where millions of images are available at the click of a mouse, Heaphy investigates questions of cultural cross-pollination across time and socio-spatial distances.
Eschewing traditional cultural hierarchies, the images on his canvases are connected at one level through the democratising form of the silhouette and their consistent leftwards orientation (are they looking forwards or backwards?). Other connections are more difficult to ascertain immediately. Mickey Mouse, collections of walking sticks and various animals sit alongside westernised images of geisha, Māori and celestial clouds which would be at home on a Chinese dragon robe
