Gerhard Marx Ocean Crossing, 2018 Reconfigured map fragments on acrylic-polyurethane ground and canvas Work: 140 x 180 cm
Ocean Crossing describes a knotted Möbius-like geometry in which the flat, rectangular aerial view of traditional cartography is reconstructed into a spatial construction that favours folds, intersections, crossings and depths.
The crossing of an Ocean often defines the migratory experience; it marks the shift away from origin and belonging into migrant, hybrid and nomadic. Ocean Crossing is constructed from depictions of water collected from a wide variety of cartographies.
The depiction of watery masses is arguably a contradiction within the traditions of cartography - in opposition to the solidities of land masses, watery bodies describe fluidities that cannot easily be named or marked with clear borders. Water presents an unmappable territory that is contained within the map itself, the mapping of fluidity and uncertainty.
