The final painting telescopes outwards, to what lies beyond the walls of the Dystopian Botanical Garden. It is not a flourishing paradise being kept hidden, instead it is a dystopia of another type, one without order. Without clear cut, hierarchies and systems of organized exploitation outerwastes are an anarchic dystopia. The haphazard trellises support precarious bowls of water. In an uncanny scramble to collect and conserve this rare resource, these withering ferns gather around these outposts. I chose the ‘sensitive fern’ as the botanical element for this piece because it is often the first species to inhabit a disturbed area. Also the curled up fragility of the plant is inherently apocalyptic looking.
I reference previous pieces inside of the gates of the glass dome. Here the first two pieces as well as the gladiator arena piece can be distinguished. All of the garden is depicted to be within a glass dome. Inside, the dome is teeming with life, while outside the ferns live off of scant resources.
I chose to end the narrative arc in a typical sense of dystopian hopelessness. sense of hopelessness can be found in such classic dystopian works as Nineteen Eighty-Four. It contrasts with much fiction of the future, in which a hero succeeds in resolving conflicts or otherwise changes things for the better.
The light source in the painting is a pale lime glow in the sky. The sky has a subtle pixilation to it however, suggesting that there is another realm beyond, or that this apocalyptic wastland is as equally fabricated by the powers at be.