The Flow (2022) is a set of three panels in acrylic on canvas, which all connect (or, more appropriately, flow) while also being distinct individually. The work was created while Messner was being assessed for autism, making the work much more personal to the artist and reflecting the growing discovery of this during its creation. The work features blues and greens, which sweep in a wave across the three canvases, which are thickly layered and create a texture like water, which suggests the flow.
The fluidity of the work seems to resist the categorisation that autism is often mischaracterised in a more conventional and binary way. Rather, it is fluid and cannot be put into a category. The black and gold areas in the set of three paintings seem to suggest society is attempting to put a binary label on autism, yet the flow ignores these blocks and continues without them resisting society’s categorisation.
The Beekeeper (2022) instantly draws the viewer to the calm and orderly honeycomb patterns, while the more graffiti region balances this by adding chaos to the composition. The beehive pattern has sharp edges and is perfectly uniform, which gives the work order and structure, while the chaotic urban elements of graffiti add a stylisation of street art to the work, breaking the uniformity. This gives the work great contrast while also moving the viewer’s eyes from uniformity to chaos as though they are leaving the beehive into the street. Or, perhaps, we are taking the role of the bee and are leaving the hive to the chaotic unpredictability of urbanism.
Both overlap, which seems to mimic the way that nature still finds a way to integrate itself into urban areas through lone trees, grass, moss, and even pigeons (and in this case, the beehive). However, rather than a criticism of the urban, it rather suggests that there can be an integration of both together, and one can exist in the other.
Forest Bathing (2024) has circular growth rings of a tree, which symbolise the tree’s age with the lived layers of the environment it is a part of. The form of the growth rings suggests that the tree has endured a lot throughout its life as it extends to the left and right edges of the canvas. The colours of the work, green, bronze, white and yellow, symbolise the forest. The rings also seem to ripple out like water does, giving the memory of what it was like before it was cut down.
There is personal significance to this work as Messner grieves over the destruction of the forest that gave peace and solitude. The textural elements in the work allow the viewer to imagine themselves running their fingers along the grooves and the growth ring of the tree to feel the pain that the dead tree feels. Hence, immersing the viewer into the work and conveying the pain of the forest gives the painting a space where one can process the loss of the forest.