Echoes of Tomorrow

Mark Antony Smith

Opening: January 29 5:30 pm

Viewing: January 28 until February 15

I paint to make sense of the world—or at least to laugh at its absurdities. In Echoes of Tomorrow, I explore the strange, lingering traces we leave behind and futures that have been lost: a pram abandoned on a bridge, a cooling tower looming over a field, a pig-headed figure wandering through misty ruins. These are moments that shouldn’t exist but somehow feel familiar, like half-remembered dreams or poorly explained urban legends.

My work balances on the thin line between the serious and the absurd. These paintings aren’t just about decay or nostalgia; they’re about what happens when memory gets tangled with imagination. What does a cooling tower have to do with a peaceful herd of cows? Nothing—and everything. These juxtapositions are my way of questioning what we value, what we abandon, and how we reconcile the two.

Nature, as always, has the last laugh in this series. The bush reclaims forgotten bridges, and mist hides humanity’s missteps. These paintings are echoes of futures we built, lost, or ignored. And maybe, just maybe, they’re reminders not to take ourselves—or our monuments—too seriously.

This exhibition came to life through conversations with my personal AI GPT model. Some concepts were developed in a collaborative dialogue between human and machine, while the GPT model has helped me reflect on the work itself.

More of my work can be seen on my website: markantony.nz

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