'The paintings in his recent ‘Enigma’ series refer also to painters that Rankle reveres. In the light of this
he credits seeing the paintings of Jacob van Ruisdael as a life-changing experience, realising that the
golden section of Renaissance art could be used to direct attention along particular trajectories, and that
Ruisdael used this structure so that the viewers gaze was guided not towards an important personages,
or emblematic signs but instead towards the void. Ruisdael’s void was no doubt nostalgia for the
transcendental, but Rankle directs our attention to another type of void.

The void of ethics that governsour financial and trading markets, within the landscape of natural resources.

The void of potential for ordinary citizens of democracies to participate in the

global flows of power because its complex parasitical structures are being so

cunningly hidden within global rescue narratives and ‘bail-out’language.'