Guido (Guy) Maestri Last light over Ball’s Pyramid
oil on linen
183 x 152 cm
Five hundred kilometers due east of our coast stands the last remaining shard of the rim of a massive, extinct volcano. Rising 600 metres out of the sea, it is the largest single volcanic stack on Earth. The rest of this enormous crater has been completely eroded away over the last seven million years.
To attempt to understand the forces at work capable of wearing such a structure to nothing is impossible. To attempt to make a painting about it also seems futile, but this remnant of the forming of the Earth became an obsession and something I needed to conquer.
This painting of Ball’s Pyramid is built up from the scrapings of previous failed attempts to paint it. I’ve gotten some way toward knowing this rock but I haven’t conquered it yet.
- Guy Maestri