In the exhibition ‘It’s Getting Hot in Here ’, Eleni Phyla focuses her attention on the environment and the damage it has been bearing. In a variety of media, the artist raises serious concerns about our ecosystem’s degradation, which has catastrophic effects on humanity.

Using neon, high contrast colours in her paintings which resemble protest banners and are inspired by thermal maps she tries to emphasize the climatic change and the extreme shifts in temperature. A video loop presenting a prickly pear in nature, fast changing narcotic colours stresses the destruction. Large cane sculptures comprised of water canes handpicked by the artist ‘planted’ into concrete – a brutal gesture as canes need water to survive – emphasizes the suffocation of our planet’s flora due to contemporary development.

Held during these unprecedented times we all live in; the exhibition is more current than ever! Climate change, pandemics, social injustice, and racial inequality are all issues inextricably intertwined. However, even with all the recent developments and attention gathered, the world’s governments continue to give empty commitments while the health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever.